


Stay Alive

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: A pretty gnarly beat down, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Body Horror, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Death, Gun Violence, Head trauma, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Mind Control, On the Run, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Pretty spooky stuff, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Teens with Knives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-01-01 05:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: Pursued by a force they do not understand, navigating a world laid waste by their failure, Toki and Skwisgaar have only one option: Survive.





	1. Chapter 1

All your life you’ve dreamed of normalcy.  
  
But normal was protean. In Norway, normal was the slice of the whip on frost-bit skin. Florida’s normal was long nights on too-hard park benches, guitar clutched between your legs. Dethklok ascended to the upper echelon of stardom, and normal became wealth and fame and women and ignoring the emptiness that rotted you from the inside out. For two months, trapped in that terrible pit, normal was the itch of a poorly-stitched wound, the brush of fur as rats scurried past your ankles. After the rescue, back with the band, normal was group therapy and histrionic apologies and naked, sincere declarations of brotherhood. Normal was the realization that, despite everything, you’re _fine_ ; more _fine_ than you had any right to be. It should be enough. It isn’t. Nothing sates your hunger. Normal remains as impermanent as it is unattainable.  
  
This, now, is the closest to normalcy you’ve ever been. You’re more distrustful of this normal than any before it.  
  
It feels disingenuous to slide back into your previous life. It’s ill-fitting, like a shirt after a bad wash. Reports of extremist factions of The Revengencers fill the news. Catastrophic weather events assault the Earth with more and more frequency. You’re forbidden from leaving Mordhaus grounds. Soon, you’re forbidden from going outside. The guys are content to stay in the dark about their roles in this so-called prophecy, but you ache for explanation. Charles doesn't have the answers. At least, he doesn't have the answers you want. He replies to every one of your nagging, belligerent questions with the same agage: _stay alive_.  
  
None of you admit how scared you are. You keep in each others’ orbits, never straying further than a room or two apart before the magnetic force of your fear yanks you back. There isn’t a formal agreement to start sleeping together, but it happens anyway. Pickles’s room is too filthy, Murderface’s too creepy, Skwisgaar’s too much of a wildcard, yours too small, so you all wind up in Nathan’s bed, piled on top of each other like sunning seal pups. It’s a convenient arrangement once the nightmares begin.  
  
Charles had said something, at some point, about _psychological warfare_ , so you guess that’s what this is. The dreams rotate, descending on someone new every night. There’s no discernable pattern. Nathan dreams of drowning, of being unable to close his mouth, his lungs filling with salt water. The water solidifies inside him, an anchor, drags him into endless inky darkness. He keeps sinking, deeper and deeper and deeper, until he sees a sperm whale, blinking at him with a thousand purple eyes. It opens its gaping maw, and he sees down, down, all the way into its belly, where the four mottled skeletons of his bandmates lay to rot.  
  
Murderface dreams of oceans, too, but not like Nathan’s. Rather, the ocean is inside him, a landscape of vibrating purple static. He tries to claw his way out, but realizes he does not have control of his actions. He is a passenger in his own body, aware of his movements but unable to alter them. Every so often an image will blink into focus, just for a second, and blink out. It’s something different every time. The silhouettes of four bodies. His hands drenched in blood. A mirror, showing a reflection that is not his own.  
  
In Pickles’s dream, he stands before a colossal black opal obelisk, each side of its pyramidal peak bearing the face of one of his bandmates. The top is broken into four sections that click left and right like a Rubik’s Cube, creating awful amalgams of all your features. Skwisgaar’s brow. Your eyes. Murderface’s nose. Nathan’s mouth. The top spins faster, faster, the faces muddying in a blur until the obelisk topples, and Pickles awakens before he’s crushed. (He tries to play this off, says he’s seen worse during bad acid trips. But he picks up smoking again, and by month’s end he graduates to two packs a day.)   
  
Skwisgaar doesn’t say what he dreams of. He doesn’t say much of anything. He stares at the lot of you for long stretches of time; when someone meets his gaze, his eyes swell with tears and he hurries out the room.  
  
You don’t dream at all. Charles doesn’t have an answer for that, either.  
  
The night it happens, you sit on the floor with Pickles, drinking from the same handle of vodka--an act of intimacy more than necessity. You ask if he’s ready for what’s coming. He takes a long pull from the bottle, watching the three sleeping bodies on the bed with a faraway look in his eye.  
  
“Doesn’t really mahtter, does it?” he says. “It’s comin’ whether we’re ready or naht.”  
  
You follow the line of Pickles’s sight. Nathan, Murderface and Skwisgaar lay in a bramble. Skwisgaar has Murderface’s arm stretched across his torso, but his head lolls towards you. It can be difficult to tell when Skwisgaar is having a nightmare. He doesn’t scream like Nathan, or thrash like Pickles, or mumble half-formed threats like Murderface. Skwisgaar stays motionless as a petrified stump, tears catching in his eyelashes like raindrops in the threads of a spider web. You see it now, the faint glisten. As you move to stand, Pickles waves you off.  
  
“I gaht it, I gaht it,” he says, rising with a groan and perching on the edge of the bed. He puts his hand on Skwisgaar’s arm, and you hear the papery shift of skin on skin. “Hey. Skwis."  
  
You hear a swift intake of breath, then a shuddering sigh.  
  
“Yer fine, bud.”  
  
“ _Pickle_ ,” he mewls, his voice breaking on the second syllable.  
  
“I know, I know.” He curls his legs up and balances his feet on the bed frame. “But it’s done naow, yeeh? Yer good, dood.”  
  
A alarm sounds. It’s not the fire alarm, or the radioactive waste alarm, or the Fan Day alarm. You’ve never heard this one before. Nathan and Murderface bolt upright, Pickles swings his legs around onto the mattress and you clamber upward, tripping as you launch yourself to join the others. A klokateer bursts through the door. Someone’s calf is beside your hand, and you grip it.   
  
“My lords, there’s been a breach,” they say. In this distance you hear a droning, collective moan, growing louder, and louder.  “We need to deploy Contingency Plan Zero-Victor-Foxtrot-Niner-Juliet--”  
  
“What are you _saying_ right now?” Nathan barks. “What do those words _mean_?”  
  
The hallway behind the klokateer darken with shadow.  
  
“--Sierra-Golf-India-Zulu-Oscar-Mike--”  
  
“Who the fuck isch Mike?”  
  
“Why ams dis plans names so longs?”  
  
“--November-Papa-Bravo-Echo-Uniform--”  
  
A sickly white hand lashes out and seizes them. Their legs go out from under them, and they lie prone on the ground, face down, before they’re dragged away, screaming. Before the unseen entity makes itself known, Nathan’s bed drops away. You lose sight of the others as you tumble into darkness.    
  
You hit solid ground sooner than anticipated, plunking into a narrow crystal chamber. The top seals with a hiss, and then you’re moving, following a rollercoaster-like rail to parts unknown. At your feet is a black messenger bag, filled to capacity, a small red “T” stitched into the front pocket. The space is cramped. Your ears pop. Panic weighs your chest like an obese dog. What’s happening? Where are you going? Where did everybody go? Above you are rungs of track lighting casting an ominous glow along your path. As your eyes adjust, you realize this tunnel is wider than you thought. Your friends have not vanished; you’re traveling in a line, in individual chambers. Each of them holds a bag similar to your own. To your right is Skwisgaar. He watches you, his expression enigmatic, the rolling light cutting slivers across his face. The chambers pick up speed. Skwisgaar splays his palm on the glass. You do the same.  
  
You arrive in a safe room, in a wing of Mordhaus you’ve never seen before. The air is cool and damp, which tells you you’re deep underground. On the opposite end of the room, Charles huddles with a cluster of klokateers and several members of the Church of the Black Klok. For as long as you’ve known him Charles has been indefatigable, but in this moment, he looks wrecked.  
  
“We were supposed to have more time,” he says. “You _said_ we would have more time.”  
  
A church member steps forward. “Apologies, Your Excellency. It appears we have...misinterpreted the timeline.”  
  
Charles grabs him by the collar. “Interpretation was your _one job_. Your incompetence has _doomed us all_.”  
  
The doors to the safe room, triple-locked and barricaded with couches and bookcases and pool tables and anything else the klokateers could get hands on, are rattling. Mordhaus is impenetrable, that’s how you--all of you, all five of you, together--designed it. No mortal man is capable of breaching its walls. But what pursues you is not mortal. It is not even man.  
  
The panels of your chamber fall away. You sling your bag over your shoulder and ask, again, for the thousandth time, what is going _on_. Charles adjusts his glasses.  
  
“It’s the end of the world, Toki.”  
  
Charles says these Revengencers are not like the mindless followers you’ve seen. They are feral and inhuman, mere puppets under the control of the Half Man. The more minds he breaks, the more powerful he becomes. He doesn’t have time to explain everything. What you need to know is the Half Man wants you dead.  
  
“This is important.” He gets up close to you all, close enough you see the beads of sweat on his brow. “As long as you’re alive, Salacia cannot achieve full power. It’s possible--” he pauses. “It’s _probable_ that some of you will not survive this. You can’t dwell on it. Stay alive.”  
  
It’s hard to hear him over the sound of Revengencers’ bodies colliding against the opposite side of the door. _Boom. Boom. Boom._    
  
“How are we supposed to stop this?” Nathan asks.  
  
Charles speaks fast, too fast. Each _crash_ brings them closer to you, each _thud_ chips away at your makeshift barrier. It will not hold up much longer. Charles keeps repeating _stay alive, stay alive, if you die it’s all over you have to stay alive do you understand_. You do not understand. You hear things like _destiny_ and _end of days_ and _fate of humanity in your hands_ and you feel so sick. Whatever is happening, it’s up to you to stop it. But you don’t know how.  
  
The barricade collapses, and a Revengencer pries a hole through the door with its bare hands. They are imbued with a light, their hearts and veins glowing through their skin. You recognize this light, sort of, as the one bursting from the flying demon, the Half Man, at what was meant to be Dethklok’s last show. Falling under his control has gifted them with an otherworldly strength, the power compounding their bloodlust. They clamber through, walking on their knuckles, limbs twisting into unnatural angles, tattered clothing stained in bile and blood. They’re everywhere.   
  
The Church members and klokateers swarm to protect you, with Charles at the helm. You’re too stunned to move. A Revengencer opens its hands to unsheath long claws and slashes a klokateer clean open, his intestines tumbling to the floor with a _splosh_. Another leaps onto a church member and bites into their neck like a rabid animal. As it pulls up to swallow you see strands of tendons lodged between its jagged teeth.  
  
Charles moves in a whirlwind, dispatching two, three, four Revengencers at a time. Nathan lunges to help but Charles shoves him backwards. He withdraws a single-button remote from a pocket within his jacket. As he presses it, a panel opens in the floor beside you, revealing a stone staircase. He yells at you now, stay alive, go, run, _please_ , stay alive, please **get out while you have the chance. Stay alive**. Skwisgaar nabs the back of your shirt and you’re on the move, descending deeper still into the pits of Mordhaus. You hear a metallic grinding above you, and see the panel in the floor move back into place. Before it does, you see Charles, squaring up for a brawl as he wraps his knuckles with his tie. The panel closes, and he is gone.  
  
Through this winding corridor there is a garage. You need to get there and find a vehicle, _any_ vehicle, that will get you out and away so you can--what? You don’t know. You don’t understand what is being asked of you. All you know is the five of you need to escape Mordhaus, or all is lost. The fittest of the bunch, you lead the pack; Skwisgaar, with his enormous gait, is close at hand. You don’t know where you’re going so Nathan shouts directions from a few feet back,  Pickles at his heels. Pickles learned how to fly the Dethjet while drunk, which means he can _only_ fly it while drunk. He clutches a handle of of vodka in one hand and bourbon in the other, alternating chugs as he sprints, pausing from his pulls to dry heave. Even with this obstacle, he still outpaces Murderface, who moves sluggishly, grabbing at his chest as he wheezes. He drops to his knees.  
  
You whirl back, barking to _get a move on fatass_ , but Murderface’s lagging is not for lack of stamina. From his chest emanates a pulsating, dark purple light. Thin veins expand outward like roots, coiling around his limbs, his whole body glowing. Everyone watches in horror. Whatever thing has claimed those Revengencers, is claiming Murderface.  
  
“Fight it, Murderface!” Nathan shouts.  
  
“I’m... _trying_ ,” he chokes, light creeping up his neck, discoloring his eyes. “I... _can’t_.”  
  
Something bright emerges from the wound on his wrist. It splits and moves up his arm, across his chest and back down, both of his hands hidden within twin balls of light.  It elongates and contorts, taking shape into something solid, something sharp. Murderface outstretches his arms, and on each of his hands are two shimmering, purple katars. He flexes his hold on the handles, and stands. Pickles takes a step forward, his grip tight on the necks of his bottles.  
  
“Dood?” he asks, a tremor in his voice. “Are ya--”  
  
It happens so fast you think your vision skipped, like a film reel missing frames. The bottles smash to the floor and you see Pickles, held aloft and kicking wildly, with one of Murderface’s weapons buried in his chest. He claws at Murderface’s wrist, gurgling with desperation, blood filling his mouth and dribbling onto Murderface’s pearlescent skin, and with his free hand Murderface uppercuts, driving the other katar through the bottom of Pickles’s jaw. The point emerges from the crown of his head, coated in brain matter. You see the blade taking up all the space in Pickles’s gaping mouth, the otherworldly purple glow illuminating his skull like a Jack-o-Lantern, and then there is silence.  
  
You don’t have time to mourn, barely have time to react before Murderface tosses Pickles’ mangled corpse aside and turns on you. He clangs the katars together and they flash, balls of light once more. They become malleable as he pulls his fists apart, a staff stretching between them. Something forms at the head. It’s not a staff. It’s a massive warhammer.  
  
Nathan is dumbstruck, a pillar of salt. You feel Skwisgaar’s hand on your back urging you forward. He tugs on Nathan’s arms, hair, shirt, yelling at him to _moves moves_ ** _moves_** **,** snapping him out of his stupor and the three of them are off. At the top of the hall there’s a _smash_ , the sound of metal bounding down the stone steps. Then you hear it, the ghoulish shrieks of the Revengencers. Your backup forces have fallen. They’re coming.    
  
Murderface maneuvers the warhammer expertly, arcing it in graceful figure eights without losing a step. He moves with such fluidity you could swear he’s gliding. A horizontal swing clips you in the back of the thigh and you go down, hard. It’s not a break--you know what those feel like--but _God_ it hurts, it hurts so bad. You try to stand but as you put pressure on it the edges of your vision go dark, and you scream, stumbling back to the ground. The slate beneath your face is cold, and when you roll onto your back you see Murderface standing over you. He spins the warhammer hand-over-hand, and while it twirls it transforms again, widening and sharpening into a massive, two-handed great sword. Raising it above him, he twists his fists around the handle in opposite directions, as if to say _I’m going to split you right down the middle_. Holding your arms over your head, you close your eyes and wait for the blow. But it never comes.  
  
Beside you is Nathan, one leg tucked beneath him, the other outstretched like he just slid into home plate. He’s gripping the blade in both hands, veins bulging from his forearms and biceps from the strain. Blood winds down his wrists. Murderface tries to pull it out but it won’t budge because Nathan is strong, he’s so strong, he’s the strongest man you’ve ever known. There are footfalls on your other side and Skwisgaar is back, pointing at the end of the hall beyond Murderface’s shoulder. A pool of purple light creeps along the floor and walls, and then they’re there in a wave, skittering and horrible. The thing that once was Murderface stares down at you and smiles, his teeth gnashing, pointed, monstrous.  
  
“ _Stay al~ive_ ,” Nathan grits.   
  
You refuse. You can’t lose him too. The mass draws closer. Nathan and Skwisgaar lock eyes; Skwisgaar’s expression morphs from confused terror into steely determination. He nods. Before you know it, he’s slugging your arm across his shoulders, hefting you to your feet, and the two of you are bolting. As you rise, you snag the strap of Nathan’s bag and hoist it over yourself so his and your packs jostle against your hip. The pain is excruciating, and Skwisgaar responds to your groans by snaking his arm around your waist and supporting more of your weight. You glance back. Before the Revengencers overtake him, Nathan looks at you one final time, as though he’s trying to communicate something he could never put into words. You don’t know what he is trying to say. You only feel gratitude, and loss.  
  
Finally, _finally_ you reach the garage. Skwisgaar locks the door behind you and kicks down a 10 foot shelf; it topples sideways to serve as another flimsy barricade. There are machines of all types surrounding you--cars, motorcycles, jetskis, hand gliders, big wheels--but you lumber to the hoverbikes, the crafts that are the furthest distance from the door. Skwisgaar helps you sit and takes the place in front of you. The hoverbikes are designed for one rider so you need to squeeze tight, pressing your body flush against his back. Skwisgaar’s hands are shaking, he can’t get the keys in the ignition. You’re running out of time. The Revengencers are tearing at the door. The engine flares to life beneath you and you’re shot out, out to freedom, past the grounds of Mordhaus and the humble homes of Mordland and through the briar beyond its borders and still going, the cold and the speed making your lungs ache and you’re still going, Skwisgaar’s hair whipping across your face and further still, away from the closest thing to normal you’ve ever known, out and out and out and out until the landscape is unrecognizable.  Behind you is nothing but failure. Ahead is nothing but road.  
  
You’re miles out when the mech starts to swerve, dipping low to the ground and narrowly avoiding collision with a tree stump. You worry you picked a faulty bike, that you should have checked the tank was full. But it’s not the vehicle that falters; it’s Skwisgaar. You hear, faintly, over the roar of the engine, his pained gasps for air. He cuts the engine when you reach a canopy of trees, the bike dropping to an ugly, unceremonious stop. He halves himself over the handlebars and wails. You know you need to keep moving, but your grief is so enormous it cannot be contained by the physical restraints of your body. You wail with him, sobbing between his shoulder blades. Your embrace around him tightens and he paws for your hand and takes it, painfully, in his own.  
  
Your friends are dead. You wish you were, too.


	2. Chapter 2

You’re on your back, the black messenger bag situated beneath your head as a makeshift pillow. The back of your thigh pulses with pain in the place where Murderface’s phantom warhammer made impact. Damp soil seeps through your clothes. Stormclouds roil above, split by flashes of jagged purple light. You do not remember the last time you saw the sky.  
  
Skwisgaar crouches at your side. He sifts through the extra pack, the one you snagged from Nathan during your grand escape, mere hours ago. Without warning, he yanks your bag out from under you. You bleat in protest, head smacking the ground with a dull _thwap_. Flipping the top over with a deft twist of his wrists, Skwisgaar plops it beside his own, also open bag. He mumbles an apology but you're pretty sure he doesn't mean it.  
  
You sit up, accessing your inventory. Charles packed these bags with attention and care, and he’s gifted you an embarrassment of riches. Collapsable water bottles. Food packets. Lighters and firestarters. Knives. Multiple shirts, pants, gloves, hats, socks, underwear. An industrial-sized first aid kit. Machetes. Batteries. Burner phones. (Ever-pragmatic, he also included a color-coded, photo-heavy guidebook detailing each item’s purpose.) Skwisgaar unloads everything with caution and lays them in tidy rows before you.   
  
In the row closest to you are several tech devices. One in particular catches your attention. An opaline disc, about the size of a makeup compact, shimmers against the dark earth. You’re pretty tech-savvy, so you can sort of guess what most of these gadgets do. Not this one. You reach forward and give it a tepid poke. Nothing happens. You try again, a bit harder; still nothing. Patience waning, you palm the stupid thing and hold it up to examine. A low beep sounds. Then, a slightly louder one. Then, it glows bright red.  
  
This surprises Skwisgaar; he trips backwards and lands on his butt.  
  
“What dids you do’s?!” he says, flipping furiously through the guidebook to figure out what the fuck you just set off. You drop the device and scramble behind Skwisgaar, watching the display over his shoulder. The disc shoots up dozens of thin, vertical beams which begin to contort and overlap as they form a holographic image. A circle, which becomes two circles, which becomes a head, which becomes a face. A face you know. You’re looking at a 3D projection of Charles.   
  
“Hello, boys,” the image says.  
  
You stick your fingers through his cheek. The picture distorts, rippling to make his whole face waver. You pull out, then stick them through his forehead. It distorts again. You pull out and stick them up his nose. You giggle.  
  
“Stops dat,” Skwisgaar says, swatting your hand away.  
  
“If you're seeing this message,” it continues, “It means Mordhaus has been compromised. It also means I, most likely, have been killed.”  
  
You stop laughing. A somber beat passes.  
  
“I won’t waste your time with details about your roles in the prophecy. At this point you should be intimately familiar with the plan moving forward.”  
  
You groan. As the message plays, Skwisgaar distributes the contents of Nathan’s bag equally into yours and his.  
  
“But to reiterate: Salacia, the Half Man, is coming for you. He is powerful and he is relentless. He will stop at nothing to see you dead.”  
  
Your chest is tight. You wish Charles, the real Charles, was here.  
  
“Your mission now is simple. Stay alive. Outrun him. Outsmart him. Trust no one but each other.  Fly under the radar. You need to disguise yourselves, or risk being captured. I know you didn’t ask for this, and I know I’m asking a lot of you. But the only way we can save this world from total destruction is if you _stay. Alive_.”  
  
The hologram rises and falls, as though it just drew a deep breath.  
  
“I’m sorry I’m not there to offer you further guidance. If I’m being honest, this message is more, ah, for my own benefit than yours. I don’t.” It pauses. “I don’t want you to forget. How important you are to me. And. Hm. How important it is, to _me_ , that you stay alive.”  
  
You feel Skwisgaar’s weight leaning into you. The image becomes muddled and wobbly as you blink away tears.  
  
“I should wrap this up, so I’ll leave you with this. I don’t know how, exactly, to defeat the Half Man. But when the time comes, _you_ will. Stay alive. I believe in you. Goodbye.”  
  
Charles’s red, holographic face remains impassive and static. You pull the device in and hold it, tight, against your heart, the final hug you never got to have. Then, you hear his voice, one last time.  
  
“This message will self destruct.”  
  
Skwisgaar shrieks and, panicking, you fling the thing far into the distance. It sails like a frisbee, the red beam flaring within the dark woods. You and Skwisgaar huddle together, waiting for something to blow. Instead of an explosion, you hear, faintly, Charles clear his throat.  
  
“Hmm. On, ah, on second thought, that joke is inappropriate, considering the, ah, circumstances. Grace, can I get another take?...What do you _mean_ it’s only capable of recording one take?...So that’s, that’s how I have to end, things...I'm not angry with you, I just wish you told me before--it's fine. No, it's fine. It's done. So. End of...message. Goodbye.”  
  
The light snuffs out.   
  
Thunder claps above. By now Skwisgaar has divided up all your extra supplies, your bags bulging with the excess. He folds Nathan’s empty bag in half, then again, and again, and again, until it’s a compact rectangle of fabric, small enough to tuck into the front pocket of his sack. There are a few things he did not pack. A change of clothes for the both of you. A GPS. And a hunting knife, the blade glinting as lightning flashes overhead. Skwisgaar looks down and sighs.  
  
“We’s gonna has to cuts it off.”  
  
You grab your leg and scream. Skwisgaar slaps you.  
  
“Our _hairs_ you _fucking idiots_.”  
  
Oh. That makes more sense.  
  
Skwisgaar goes first. Withdrawing a hair tie from his pocket, he gathers all of it in a loose, low ponytail. He positions the blade just above the elastic. Stroking the full length of his mane a few more times, he pushes the tie down, a little, to leave a little bit more. He winces, then shears everything off in one clean slice. Strands fall to frame his face. The longest pieces just barely graze his shoulders. He shakes it out and says he thinks it makes him look like a teenager. But without the curtain of hair you can better see the sharp curves of his cheekbones, his strong jaw. It suits him, to be honest.  
  
You do the same, though not as neat as Skwisgaar. Your cut takes more than one chop. The end result is lopsided, the front pieces reaching your chin. You haven’t felt the ends of your hair scratch the back of your neck in over a decade, and you hate it. It reminds you of Norway, of keeping your head lowered as you waited for the switch to come down. With Skwisgaar’s help you cut it even shorter, leaving just enough to tuck behind your ears.  
  
The clothes, meant for Nathan, are too big for both of you. The shirt swallows Skwisgaar. He tears a messy, fraying swatch off the hem and uses it to secure the GPS to the hoverbike’s handlebars. While he works, you wriggle out of your old pants. You haven’t checked your leg for damage yet, but you know it’s going to suck. When they’re off you roll to your side to inspect, expecting a gnarly contusion or a blossoming blood bruise. There’s nothing. Were it not for the lingering pain, it would be like you weren’t injured at all. You put your pants on, and put it out of your mind.  
  
Criss-crossing the bags’ straps across your torso, you ask what happens next.  
  
“Dunnos,” Skwisgaar says, mounting the hoverbike. “Let’s find outs.”  
  
You embark. The ride feels like it lasts forever. You don’t know where you’re going, of what you’ll find when you get there. In every direction you find nothing but darkness. Still, you press on. The bags clunk against your hips. Your thigh throbs. For the past few hours you've been buoyed by adrenaline, but it's running thin. You catch yourself dozing off a couple time; whenever your grip on Skwisgaar slackens, he shouts at you to _keeps it togethers_ and you snap to attention. Then, you see it. On the horizon is a glimmering beacon, and as you draw closer it takes shape. It’s a settlement, a hodge-podge community cobbled together with tents of varying sizes. Oil barrels blaze with flame. Billows of white smoke tuft off of grills hanging out of the backs of vans. People mill about. Skwisgaar parks the hoverbike at the edge of the forest, concealed behind a burly trunk. Charles’s plea to lay low echoes in your mind. You wonder, aloud, if it’s a good idea to go over there.  
  
“You wants to stays outside in the wood all nights?” Skwisgaar replies.  
  
You don’t.  
  
“You’re hoirts,” he says, hefting you off the bike. You hiss as you put too much weight on your bum leg and hold it off the ground like a flamingo. Skwisgaar grips your forearms to steady you. “I can'ts drives anymores. Dis place look safes. We’s spend one nights here, den foirst t’ings tomorrow, we gets out and comes up wif a game plans. Ja?”  
  
You agree, reluctantly, and using Skwisgaar as a crutch, you hobble to the tent city. A heavyset woman with a shaved head and a lip ring sits in the dirt near the community entrance. A steel toothpick bobs between her teeth. She’s sharpening the blade of an outrageously enormous knife, much larger than the one Skwisgaar tucked into his boot. As you approach, she studies you.  
  
“Let me guess,” she says as she stands, knife brandished. “Mordland refugees?”  
  
“Yes,” Skwisgaar answers, voice pitched down, in his best approximation of an American accent. “Got rooms?”  
  
She sighs.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
You follow her into what, at first glance, appears to be a big party tent, the type common at lawn parties. Really, it’s a blue tarp, the kind that covers scaffolding at construction sites, knotted to the tops of metal poles to serve as a roof and walls. The area is filled with all sorts--filthy, tired, weary looking people clustered in sad little clumps. Most don’t notice you, but in the far corner you see a little girl, dark braids coming undone, knees drawn up, clutching a rag doll missing an eye and an arm. Her eyes follow your entire course. You turn away, tuck your chin in.  
  
“We’ve been getting more and more of you klok fellas lately,” the woman says, not without disdain. “What division you in?”  
  
“Groundskeeping,” Skwisgaar says.  
  
You have no idea where he pulled that from. You’re kind of impressed.  
  
“Huh.” She scratches the back of her head with the dull side of her blade. “Been hearing a lot of rumors. Scary stuff. Folks are saying Dethklok got axed.”  
  
Skwisgaar grunts.  
  
“Know anything about that?”  
  
He grunts again, neutrally.  
  
“Well,” she says, leading you to a section of grungy-looking cots, “Wouldn’t be the worst thing.”  
  
Because you’re an idiot with no impulse control, you blurt out, in a wounded tone, _why_. Skwisgaar digs his nails into your waist. The woman turns on her heel and stares you down.  
  
“You serious? _They’re_ the reason all this weird shit is happening, aren’t they?” She’s practically shouting; a few people glance up at the break in relative silence. “They were supposed to stop something, and they _didn’t_ , and now we’ve got a fuckin’ apocalypse. I lost  _everything_ because of those assholes. I _hope_ they’re dead.”  
  
In your mind you see their faces, Charles and Pickles and Murderface and Nathan, spinning like a roulette wheel, vibrant and joyful and alive, and you think, for the first time, you’re never going to see them again. It takes everything you have to choke down a sob.  
  
The woman lashes an arm out and points with the knife to a single, twin-sized cot,  
  
“Only got one bed left,” she says as she storms off. “I’m sure you’ll make due."  
  
You’re drained. The physical and emotional toll of the day sits between your shoulders, and you can’t keep upright any longer. You collapse, half-dragging Skwisgaar with you, onto the bed. Your leg is scorching, you need relief. Skwisgaar, sensing this, hands you one of the first aid kits. You withdraw a (somehow) still cold ice pack, a long bandage, and set to work wrapping it. Skwisgaar watches with fascination.  
  
“Where you learn to does dat?  
  
Without thinking, you say Abigail was a volunteer EMT in college and she taught you to dress wounds when you were--Mistake! You stop yourself but it's too late. You already know Skwisgaar’s fixing you with that _look_. That saucer-eyed sympathetic look, the one you got from _everyone_ no matter how many times you said you were fine, you were _good_ , you were _over it_. That look of _pity_ that says you’re some kind of baby bunny with it’s foot snared in a trap. You’re not. You’re fucking _not_.  
  
Skwisgaar readjusts next to you. His hands knead the knobby blanket.  
  
“Listens--”  
  
You interrupt him.  
  
“No, waits, lets me says dis. When you was gones, I...it was a bads time. I kept gettings fucked up so’s I wouldn'ts haves to t’inks abouts how sads I was, how scared I was. Cause dat was easier dan t’inkings about yous.”   
  
You blink. This was not the direction you thought this conversation would go in. He combs his fingers through his newly-shorn hair.  
  
“I was a cowards. Ands I lets you downs.”  
  
You don't dispute this.  
  
“Hey.” He speaks in a hush. “Looks me in my eye.”  
  
When you won’t, he takes your chin in his hand and tips it toward him. He’s not giving you that _look_. He’s giving you a new one. In his eyes is an unshakable, repentant resolve. For a moment, you don't think about your aching leg or your short hair or your dead friends or anything else. For a moment, you feel safe.  
  
“I'm nots going to does dat agains.”  
  
His hand drops but you capture it on the way down. Your heart is awash in a stiff cocktail of emotions. A beat. Squeezing his hand, you promise you won’t let him down, either. The corners of his mouth twitch.  
  
“Don’t sells yourself shorts,” he says, squeezing back. “You ams always finding new and exciting ways to disappoint mes.”  
  
You tell him to go fuck himself. He laughs. So do you. It’s almost nice.  
  
Just then, the flaming oil barrel serving as the main light source for the room extinguishes. Darkness descends. When your eyes adjust, you see her, at the foot of your bed. The little girl. The clothes she wears are torn to ribbons, splattered with dried flecks of blood. Her skin is a mottled gray, and up close you can see a raised scar curving from her eyebrow to her chin. In one hand she holds her mangled doll. The other is outstretched, facing downward. Boy, you hate kids. You really, _really_ hate kids, especially weirdo ones that seem to see straight through to your fucking soul. Skwisgaar, just as unnerved as you, scoots closer.  
  
“Heyyyyyyy, little goirls,” he says. “Ain’ts it past your beds time?”  
  
“I know who you are,” she says. Her eyes are like the eyes of a deer, black and unblinking. You move backwards on the bed, trying to put as much space between you and her as possible.   
  
“What’s you talking abouts? We ams just two guy, tryings to goes to sleeps," Skwisgaar says. He reaches for his knife. Your back hits the tarp wall. "Sleeps ams importants for little goirls! So why don’t you does dat. Now. Over deres.”  
  
Her eyes narrow. The scar on her cheek illuminates.  
  
“You’re the reason my mom is dead.”  
  
Volts of energy crackle around her. The doll incinerates. Dropping to one knee, she puts her palm to the ground, and purple veins of light extend from the touch, coiling like serpents as they move across the floor, up the walls, out into the encampment, beyond. Throughout the tent, you hear howls of anguish. When she speaks again, you hear not only her voice, but another, layered on top of it. Gravely. Ancient. Familiar.    
  
“ ** _Y O U  D E S E R V E  E V E R Y T H I N G  T H A T ‘ S  C O M I N G  T O  Y O U.”_**


	3. Chapter 3

The room is bathed in pulsating purple light. Surrounding you are shadowy forms, made misshapen and hostile by the Half Man’s dark power. Moments ago, these monstrosities were people, like you, hoping to stave off oblivion for one more night. Now they turn on you as a single, snarling mass, their incandescent bodies a barricade across the only exit. Your safe haven has become a death trap.     
  
Looking to Skwisgaar, you ask how you’re going to get passed them.  
  
Eyes scanning the crowd, he answers, “We amn’ts.”  
  
Your heart drops. You try to think of something, _anything_ to do, but you’re paralyzed by your ineptitude. Charles asked you to do _one thing_ , to _stay alive_ , and you couldn’t manage for _one day_. Your only option is to wait for death, and hope it’s a swift one.  
  
But that’s not what Skwisgaar meant. Unsheathing the knife from his boot, he rears back and tears an opening in the tarp wall behind you.  
  
“Moves,” he yells, already through the hole, both bags hitched over his shoulder as he jerks you to your feet. There is a tiny space between your tent and the three that abut it, walling you in. Within each you see the silhouettes of other encampment members deforming as they are corrupted. The hoard behind you releases a collective scream. Skwisgaar’s head whips back and forth, and with the knife he rips entryways through each of the tents before pulling you into the tent on the right.     
  
This tent is wider than the one you were just in. There are no creatures, but strewn across the ground are car scraps and mechanical parts of varying size. An oil barrel burn in the center of the room. On the wall opposite you is a doorway out to the camp’s main thoroughfare. Outside, you see bolts of electricity leapfrogging from tent to tent, their interiors glowing purple.  
  
Skwisgaar starts grabbing pieces of machinery--hoods, bumpers, tailgates, axels, shocks, wheel hubs. Anything that can serve as a stop gap, he’s tossing into the pathway. When you move to help him, you fall to your knees. Your leg, which was already on it’s last, well, _leg_ , completely gives out. You lie helpless as a slug. Skwisgaar nudges your back with his foot.  
  
“Keeps moving!”  
  
You cry that you _can’t_.  
  
“You cans _crawls_ , can’ts yous?”  
  
You can. So you do. You’ve elbowed to the oil drum when the Revengencers burst through. Their numbers have dwindled (Skwisgaar’s trick was effective) but they are no less threatening. They come for you clumsily, bumbling over the wayward obstacles. Skwisgaar is in the far corner, struggling to lift an engine block. A spry, spindly figure leads the pack, pouncing like a rabid possum. It leaps. You are defenseless.  
  
**_Clang_**! The blazing barrel beside you topples over and bounds away, catching the airborne assailant by the foot and knocking it prone. At your side is Skwisgaar, leg still extended from his swift kick. As the figure rises, you see flames wind up it’s pant leg, spreading to his shirt, until it is completely engulfed. It shrieks. In its panic it runs backwards, into the fray of beasts. The fire catches quick, igniting one creature, then another, and then another. More figures filter in and are ensnared, the crowd spiraling into a frenzied fireball.    
  
Skwisgaar hooks his hands beneath your armpits and, grunting, lugs you the rest of the way out. Outside the tent is an automobile graveyard, a valley of inoperable vehicles of all makes and models that have been gutted for parts. You scramble to hide behind an ice cream truck hoisted on cinderblocks, its decals of frozen treats defaced and scratched out. Skwisgaar draws an invisible map on his palm.  
  
“H’okays, so’s, de entrance ams over _deres_ , so ifs we goes _dis_ ways we can makes a breaks for its and gets backs to de houverbike--”  
  
You must black out, because the next instant you're crumpled in a heap as Skwisgaar rapidly taps your cheek and mutters, “Not nows not nows not nows Toki you _can’ts do dat right nows_.” Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ your leg hurts so bad. You can’t walk, can’t even stand up. Skwisgaar isn’t strong enough to carry you out. You’re deadweight. Tears sting at your eyes. You beg him to leave you. You can’t be the reason he dies, too. You _won’t_.  
  
He draws a long breath through his nose, his face pulling into the taut, frustrated expression he wore every single time you asked for another take during a late night studio session.  
  
“You're really goingks to bes like dis,” he says through gritted teeth. “ _Fines_.”  
  
He hauls you to the back of the van and throws open the roll up door. Your spine scrapes the bumper as he lifts you into the cargo hold. He presses his knife into your palm.   
  
“I’m comings backs,” he says, lobbing the bags after you. “Don’ts moves.”  
  
You don’t know if he’s trying to be cute or not. Either way you don’t like it. The door slams shut, and you are alone.  
  
The space is empty. Small. Dark. So much time in the dark. It’s always in you. The click of rats’ nails on tile. A placid, smiling face hidden within the straw. Snow pressed to fresh wounds to dull the sting. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. Curling beneath the bench at your mother’s piano, knowing your punishment will be worse for evading. A deceitful child. **Smack**. A wicked child. **Smack.** Rotten. Lacking in faith. **Smack smack.** Undeserving of mercy. Mistake. _And I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee_. **Smack**. _And I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth._ **Smacksmacksmack**. Awful child. Stupid. Useless. Useless useless useless uselessuselessuslessusless _stop it stop it stop it you can’t do this right now.  
  
_ The door flies open and you’re certain it’s your end. But it isn’t. It’s Skwisgaar. His hands grip the handle of a platform cart, the metal flatbed low to the ground. Embers rain from above, the stench of burning plastic dizzying. The encampment is an inferno, tents drowning in tendrils of flame, and yet he stands at their center like Moses at the Red Sea, triumphant and untouched. An angel. He dragged you off the street, he dragged you to success, and now he was going to drag you to survival.  
  
“Gets on,” he says. And you do.  
  
He runs. The wheels wobble underneath you. The wails of the beasts whirlwind around you, but they are too distracted by the fire to attack. Skwisgaar’s labored pants are audible over the roar of the burning camp. You clutch the bags to your chest with one arm, the other braced around the metallic handle. You make a shaky path to the exit, the woods drawing nearer and nearer until you see it. The hoverbike, unscathed. You’re so close. Escape is at your fingertips. You look back at Skwisgaar, his hair fluttering like wings. You’re going to make it. Something slices through the air.  
  
“ ** _Hhnk!_** ”  
  
Skwisgaar stiffens, as though all of the air in his lungs is pushed out of him at once. His mouth hangs agape, and then he caves, upturning the cart as he falls. You sail into the dirt. Skwisgaar is face down, with the outrageously enormous knife, the one as long as your forearm, half buried in his left shoulder. He’s breathing, but his shirt darkens with blood. You look up, and see her. It’s the woman who had been guarding the entrance, eyes blank, her body circuited with gleaming purple lines. Her approach is methodical and measured, more composed than the other Revengencers you’ve seen. She looms over you. Leaning down, she tears the knife out and flips it in the air, catching the handle again so she’s poised to strike. Skwisgaar’s eyes meets yours, apologetic. She raises the knife, and smiles. Just as she’s about to gut you like a fish, you see a bead of red light appear at the center of her forehead. You hear a shot. And then her head explodes.  
  
You shield yourself as blood and brain matter splash everywhere. She drops, and beyond her a mass of Revengencers surge. As they clamber toward you, you see countless more red beads appear across their faces, and then it’s headshot after headshot after headshot, until nothing but a pile of corpses remains.  
  
You look back to the woods, where the shots came from. From the darkness emerges a figure, stocky, dressed in Black Ops attire, his face concealed by a mask and reflective goggles. Skwisgaar pats around for the woman’s knife, finds it, and then grips it in both hands. He points it at the figure. His sight is trained on each of you. He re-holsters his gun, then holds a hand to his ear.  
  
“Target aquired. Alpha team move in.”  
  
The deafening whirr of blades drowns you as a Black Hawk helicopter floats into view above the trees. More figures, swathed in combat gear, jump from the craft and rappel to the earth. The man takes a step toward you. From a side pocket in his vest, he withdraws a syringe. Skwisgaar takes a feeble swing, the knife’s edge grazing the man’s shin.  
  
“Gets de FUCKS--”  
  
The syringe plunges into Skwisgaar’s neck, and his whole body goes limp. You scream. The man takes out another syringe and moves to you. There’s a soft _pat pat pat_ all around you as feet hit the ground. You feel the sharp pinch of a needle, and then everything goes dark.  
  
You awaken to whiteness. Is this heaven? No, it can’t be; there aren't any horse-sized bunny rabbits being ridden by naked ladies. As your senses return to you, you realize you're in another tent, this one much nicer and much more well-maintained than the one at the encampment. You’re surrounded by medical accoutrements, an IV inserted in your arm. White cloth dividers flank your bed. A feminine voice chirps “Oh, good, you're awake.”  
  
At your bedside is a tall, fit woman dressed in army fatigues, her blonde hair swept into a low bun. She possesses a warm, calming presence, one that relaxes you. That could also be the drugs. You ask where you are. She smiles.  
  
“The general will brief you once he returns. How are you feeling?”  
  
You feel...good. Great, even. Way better than you should, considering the circumstances. You sit up, and as you do, your realize something. Your leg no longer hurts. Not even a little. Not at all. Her smile widens.   
  
“The US military has made some pretty incredible advancements over the years,” she says, grabbing your chart. “One of these developments was a, for lack of a better word, ‘super serum’ that accelerates the body’s natural healing process. This serum was meant to aid only our most elite soldiers, but for you,” she winks, “we made an exception.”

Super serum? Like Michael’s Secret Stuff? Does this mean you’ll be able to dunk on the Monstars? She laughs, but as she leafs through your chart, her smile fades.  
  
“Huh."  
  
Wait. Where’s Skwisgaar?  
  
“Your scans showed some...irregularities.”  
  
_Where’s Skwisgaar?  
  
_ “It’s very unusual, we should discuss--”  
  
**_WHERE’S SKWISGAAR?!?!??!??!  
  
_** “Gets a grips on youself, dildo, I’s right heres.”  
  
At the sound of that voice you’re on your feet, pushing aside the divider and there he is, seated shirtless on a bed, the corner of his mouth lifting in a mischivious smirk.   
  
“Hi,” he says.  
  
You rip out the IV (“Oh, please don’t-! Okay, you already did. Wow. Okay.”) and throw your arms around him. He gasps as you do.  
  
“Toki, _please_ ,” he whines. You assume it’s just his natural distaste for physical affection and squeeze him tighter out of spite. Then your fingers graze something. You pull away, look over his shoulder and see a fresh seam of stitches running down his back. Oh.  
  
He raps his knuckles on your back, and shrugs. “Now we’s match.”  
  
In the edges of your periphery, you see the doctor set down your chart and salute.  
  
“General!”  
  
Darkening the doorway of the tent is the man from the woods, still in uniform. He holds his helmet under his arm, and without the mask you can see his stern, weathered face. When he enters Skwisgaar’s expression hardens.  
  
“At ease,” the man says as he crosses to you. He gives you each the once over, then glances at the doctor. “May we have the room?”  
  
“Of course, sir,” she says with another salute. She gives you one last quick smile, then departs. He waits until she leaves before speaking again.  
  
“A private audience with Dethklok’s guitarists.” His tone is not complimentary. “I must be the luckiest guy in the world.”  
  
Skwisgaar shifts to keep his body between yours and the general’s.  
  
“Hey mans, if you’re lookingks for a shows you better be’s prepared to meets our appearance fees. It ams, poirhaps, a _littles_ too steeps. For, yous.”  
  
“I don’t count myself among your fans,” he gruffs. “Your music is...not my taste.”  
  
Skwisgaar leans into you conspiratorily and stage-whispers, “Sounds likes dis guy’s music tastes _suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks_.”  
  
You clamp your hand over your mouth to contain your snickering. The general looks unamused.  
  
“We don’t have a lot of time so I’ll make this quick. We’re in the middle of a global crisis, a crisis _you_ created--”  
  
You try to object but he barrells on.  
  
“--and while I don’t know _how_ to stop it, I do know your band needs to be alive to do so. We’re three down, which makes it all the more critical to keep you two safe. That means transporting you somewhere where no one, not even Mr. Salacia, will be able to find you.”  
  
He takes out a screen displaying a vast map with white dots marking the locations of safe houses and bunkers. He puts his finger over a dot in the ocean.  
  
“There is a subaquatic base located here. Its coordinates are only known to a select few. You can hide out there until we require you. I will usher you there personally.”   
  
Skwisgaar adopted a toothy, insincere grin.  
  
“Wow, a strangers will brings us outs to de middle of de ocean where nobodies will knows where we ams! Cool plans! Dat won’ts gets us killed!” He drops the act. “T’anks but no t’anks, pals. We cans handles ourselves.”  
  
“Is that what you call the business at the camp? Handing? Were it not for the intervention of my team you would have been annihilated.”  
  
“Oh ja? Where was yous whens all dems crazy guys cames to our house? Eh? Coulds have used some helps dere.”  
  
The general sighs.  
  
“The loss of Mordhaus was unfortunate and unanticipated. It would seem we,” he smirks “ _overestimated_ your manager’s capabilities."  
  
Hey fuck this guy. Skwisgaar stands to his full height, a good five or six inches taller than the general, and glares.  
  
“We ams _leavings_ ,” he growls, his voice rumbling at the bottom of his register. When he tries to step out, the general moves into his path.  
  
“Do you think this is a _game_?” He’s chest to chest with Skwisgaar, who looks undeterred. “You have _no idea_ what you're up against. Mr. Salacia is more powerful than any of us have imagined and it's going to take extraordinary efforts to bring him down. You want to die alone in a ditch that's your prerogative. You want to stay alive, you want to keep _him_ alive?”  
  
He jabs a finger in your direction, and you recoil.  
  
“Then you come with me.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s rage simmers. He glances back at you, softness fracturing his tough facade. Without turning back, he grumbles, “ _Fines_.”  
  
“Smart decision, boys, probably a first for you.”  
  
“Don’ts calls us **boys**.”  
  
“Very well. Gather your things, we’ll be departing shortly.”  
  
He leaves. Skwisgaar faces you, his hands on your shoulders.  
  
“I don’ts likes dis guys.”  
  
You agree, this guy can eat a bag of dicks.  
  
“We mights haves to’s euuuuuugggghhhh takesd t’ings into our own hand.” He releases you. “Keeps you’s head on a swivels, okays?”  
  
You nod. He shuffles off to find a shirt, and you make a decision. Cutting your hair and changing your clothes wasn’t enough of a disguise. To blend in with regular jackoffs, drastic measures are needed. Clustered along the lip of a nearby portable sink are several things. A dingy bar of soap. A hand mirror. And a straight razor.  
  
While Skwisgaar works, you lather up with as much as the waxy block will allow. You’ve never shaved with a straight razor before, eking down your chin with careful little swipes. The razor slips and you nick the skin just above your lip. When you go to tend to it, there is nothing. No mark, no blood. You must not have cut yourself that hard.  
  
Splashing clean, you rub dry with the front of your shirt. You stare at the face in the mirror. You don’t know who that is.     
  
“You ready to’s--oh,” Skwisgaar says, appearing beside you. He looks surprised, and something else you can’t quite peg. He pats the still-tender skin where your moustache once was.  
  
You ask him if it looks weird.  
  
“Ja,” he says, but flinches. “Sorries. I means, I’s just not used to its. But it amn’ts _bads_.” He’s still touching your face, fingertips trailing gently to your jaw. “It ams, very, _nots_ bads.”  
  
The general, helmet on once more, pokes his head into the tent. “If you ladies are done fussing, I’d like to get on the road before sunrise.”  
  
You depart from the base in a massive tank-like vehicle, a glass dome roof allowing you to see out from all sides. Not that there’s much to see; surrounding you is an expansive, barren desert; the speed of your ride kicks up plumes of red dust. The interior of the tank is tight. A vast panel of blinking buttons and controls reflect in the sheen of the general’s goggles. He drives, Skwisgaar rides shot gun and you’re crunched behind both. Often on long trips with the band, Skwisgaar nodded of within the first five minutes. Not now. A notebook he swiped from the base lays open in his lap and he scribbles furious, meticulous notes on how to operate the craft. He asks the general to explain the function of every lever, knob and switch, which the general mostly obliges. You’ve seen his single-minded focus before, whenever he gets into a songwriting groove, but it’s never manifested like this. He’s studious. He draws diagrams.  
  
There was a game you and Murderface played whenever you were shut out of the studio.You cooked up an assortment of extreme circumstances and ranked how long your bandmates would last. When it came to surviving in the wild, Skwisgaar consistently ranked at the bottom, and you consistently ranked at the top. Why wouldn’t you? You’re far and away the most physically fit member of the band. You’ve played more run-and-gun shoot-em-up video games than you can count. You have a ZombieRun app to motivate you during cardio. Skwisgaar is high-maintenance, lazy, airheaded and has the upper body strength of a drunk toddler. You should be _crushing_ this. _You_ should be the one leading _Skwisgaar_ out of destruction, not the other way around. Then again, why change a dynamic that works? This the way it's always been. He's the stallion. You're the mule.  
  
The general’s patience with Skwisgaar’s pestering runs thin.  
  
“If you're going to keep this up the whole way to the subterranean base it's going to be a long ride.”  
  
Skwisgaar pen slows, then stops.  
  
“You means de subaquatic base?”  
  
“Beg pardon?”  
  
Skwisgaar folds his notebook shut.  
  
“Befores you says we was goingks to a subaquatic base. Did plans change?”  
  
The general’s hands tighten their grip on the steering wheel.  
  
“I misspoke.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s movements lack their usual fluidity, tension stiffening his joints.  
  
“Shouldn’t you knows de difference betweens under _grounds_ and under _waters_? Gen-Er-Als?”  
  
“Are you always this distrustful of people trying to save your ass?”  
  
He reclines in his seat, draping his arm over the back of it so his hand hangs out in space.  
  
“What cans I says? I am _hueeeeughhhh_ curious, likes a kitty cats.” He raises his palm, facing outward, then flops it down over his wrist. “ _Mrow_.”  
  
You almost burst out laughing, the lie is that absurd. There are many words you would use to describe Skwisgaar, not all of them flattering, and _curious_ is not one of them. Then you notice him looking at you. His expressing is neutral, but his gaze is intense. It barrels into you, then flicks down to the floor, then back again. You squint. He lifts his hand and lets it fall forward once more.  
  
“ ** _Mrow_** ,” he repeats, more aggressive than the last. He’s pointing this time, his eyes widening as they shift downward, back to you, down, back, down again in a frantic loop. Between his and the general’s seats is a long, black lever, its bright red knob positioned away from you in the direction of the control panel. It’s the emergency brake. Skwisgaar does the motion once more, this time pointing so hard you see his hand shake.  
  
“ ** _Mrrrrow_**.”  
  
You scooch to the edge of your seat, forearms on your thighs, and lean in. And wait.  
  
“Will you cut that out?” the general says.  
  
Skwisgaar turns back, pulling on each of his fingers individually so his knuckles crack. He cocks his head to the side.  
  
“Ams dat supposed to be’s flashing likes dat?”  
  
He points vaguely to the left of the general, who glances over, then back at the road.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Dat t’ings."  
  
“What thing?”  
  
“Does you really’s nots sees it?”  
  
He pushes himself to stand, steadying himself on the back of the general’s seat with one hand.  
  
“It’s dat t’ings.”  
  
He bends forward.  
  
“Rights.”  
  
Raises his free hand.  
  
“ ** _Dere_**.”  
  
And slams the general’s head into the console.  
  
The impact of his helmet makes a _crunch_ on the panel. Skwisgaar smashes his face in two, three more times, using both hands. You reach forward and throw back the emergency brake, the tank lurching and veering left, then right, then swerving sideways as it screeches to an abrupt halt. Metal grinds beneath you. Skwisgaar punches a button at the console’s center and the glass dome slides back like the roof of a convertible. Wind sweeps back your hair. Skwisgaar stumbles, then regains his footing.  
  
“Let’s **_go_** ,” he yells as he clambers out of the vehicle.  
  
No longer dazed, the general spins on you. Through the deep crack in his goggles you see a flash of electric purple. Grabbing your bags, you leap out, hitting the sand with a _fwip_. Skwisgaar is waiting for you, and once you’re down he bolts, both of you sprinting at full speed. You haven’t gotten far when Skwisgaar’s legs fly out from under him, and he’s pulled backwards. A sparking purple tendril is coiled around his ankle.  
  
You’re holding him back when you see the general. Four spectral purple tentacles, one gripping Skwisgaar, protrude from his back, lifting him up and out of the tank, stomping toward you menacingly. His skin is torn open, revealing ripples of purple light. You root around your bag for something, _anything_ that will aid you. You hand closes around something round and firm. A grenade. You yank out the pin with your teeth and hurl it.    
  
The general catches it in his hand. He grins, revealing a mouth of serrated teeth, and crushes it, the blast blowing his hand apart. From the bloodied stump stretch four blade-like claws. The general rears back to strike, but falters. The light within him dims, brightens, then goes out. He drops to his knees. A pistol clatters to the ground. Skwisgaar, now free, nabs it as he scrambles to his feet.   
  
The general looks in a bad way. You see the tentacles unfurl then retract from him. He flicks back and forth, human, now monster, now human again, and for the moment he has control he looks to you with despair.  
  
“I won’t…...be your pawn…..anymore…….”  
  
His eyes glow.  
  
“ ** _Y O U  T H I N K_** \--hrg!-- ** _Y O U  C A N  E S C A P E  M E?_** \--Aah!-- ** _I_** \--k...kill me-- ** _W I L L  A L W A Y S  F I N D  Y O U_** \--I can’t...please kill me....--”  
  
Skwisgaar is frozen in place.  
  
“ ** _Y O U  C A N N O T  O U T R U N  Y O U R  F A T E_** \--take the shot, kid, take the fucking SHOT--”  
  
You take the gun, place the barrel in the center of the general’s forehead, and pull the trigger.  
  
His head explodes in a spray of blood and brain matter and bone fragments. A volt of purple energy erupts from his skull like a geyser, shooting skyward and then dissipating.  
  
Smoke weaves out of the gun’s barrel. You hear Skwisgaar’s labored pants beside you. He extends his hand and snaps.  
  
“Gives to me mine bags.”  
  
You do. He sticks his fingers in the front pocket and takes out Nathan’s neatly folding bag. Kneeling before the general, he rifles through his body, pulling weapon after weapon off the corpse, and stuffs them into the empty sack. As he goes through the pockets of this corpse, snatching anything he deems useful, you say this is a little disrespectful. He shoots you a look of disdain.  
  
“You just shots dis guy in de fucking face and you wants to talks to mes about disrespects?”  
  
Fair enough. He finishes quickly, slugs the full satchel over his shoulder, gives the general’s corpse a honorable dap, then heads back for the tank. You follow. Skwisgaar smooths his notebook on the console before him, flipping back and forth as he attempts to get the craft operational. After a few false starts, it flares to life. The roof slicks shut, and you’re on the road once more. Alone.  
  
“ _Hej_ ,” Skwisgaar says after a while. “What's it likes to kill someones?”  
  
You point out, evenly, that he _did_ set all those Revengencers on fire.   
  
“Ja, but I didn't _kill_ dose guys, de fire killed dose guys.” He turns a page, squinting, then shifts gears. “Alsos? We nevers _saws_ dem dies, so I ams still ins de clear.”  
  
You think he's splitting hairs but okay. You say death never seemed to concern him before. He waves you off.  
  
“Death ats a Dethklok shows am inevitables. Dey cannots be’s avoided. Pfft. Buts. I nevers.” He swallows. “I nevers dids. What’s you just dids. I don’t knows ifs I cans.”  
  
You say desperation makes people capable of all kinds of things.  
  
Skwisgaar studies you for a long moment, his gaze unreadable. He returns his eyes to the road. You ride through the night in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

It doesn’t take long for the urgency to bleed out of your situation. When it does, you're left with a meld of paranoia, anxiety and, worst of all, boredom. Every day follows an identical pattern. Skwisgaar drives until he’s cross-eyed with exhaustion, you find cover for the night, sleep a few fitful hours, get up, keep driving. Skwisgaar is winging it, something he does not enjoy and does not find sustainable.  The tank reeks of stale farts and unwashed hair. Your destination is unknown; you just need to get away. Away from military bases, and refugee encampments, and the smoldering ashes of your former life. You want to be Not Here. But Not Here is a moving target.  
  
The scenery mutates. Decimated suburbs. Bombed out cities. Farmland littered with rotting corpses. Only now can you see how much has changed, how much was destroyed while you were cloistered in Mordhaus. You start to get why that giant knife lady at the camp was so mad at Dethklok. You’d be pissed, too.  
  
In fact, you _are_ pretty pissed. You’re pissed at the Half Man, for obvious reasons. You’re pissed at Charles, for withholding so much under the guise of protection. You’re pissed at Nathan and Pickles and Murderface for having the audacity to _die_ when you needed them most. And you’re pissed at Skwisgaar, to be honest. He just _has_ to be the hero of the story, doesn’t he? So inflexible, won’t let you do _anything_. Not that you’re a font of good ideas; you search for helpful suggestions but your brain is shooting blanks. Although, he could _offer_ suggestions, but he doesn’t. He talks less, drives more. You wait for guidance that never comes. You’re a burden, a worthless meat sack he must carry across the wasteland. Same as it ever was. Unrest grows between you like weeds.  
  
You’re lying on the tank’s floor, rubbing the soft patches of fuzz sprouting across your cheeks. The burnt husks of strip malls rush past as you careen down an abandoned highway. You’ve been in the tank for three straight days.  You’re bored, you say. Skwisgaar doesn’t answer. You kick the back of his chair and say, again, louder, you’re _boooooooOOOOOooooored.  
  
_ “You coulds, always, better acquaints yourself wifs dat guidebook?” He tries to keep his tone even and fails. “Of stuffs? Whats Charles gaves us?”    
  
You say that sounds dumb, you don’t want to do _that_. Skwisgaar makes a throaty noise of discontent.  
  
“I don’ts knows what you expect to hears from me’s.”  
  
You sit up, your head at Skwisgaar’s elbow. The top layer of his hair is a tight knot at the back of his skull, the rest dangling free. You think that’s kind of extra--why wouldn’t he put all of it up? Does he think that looks good? Who is he trying to impress?--but with his hair out of his face you see the bruise-like circles under his eyes. You tell him he looks like shit. The skin near his mouth cinches.  
  
“Wells. I has, beens drivings. For a whiles. So’s."  
  
Climbing into the passenger seat, you say if he’s so tired he could always let _you_ drive.  
  
“You don’ts knows how.”  
  
He could _teach_ you. He scoffs, mutters something derisive under his breath. You ask him to repeat himself.  
  
“I _says_ dat _maybes_ I ams tireds from carryingks your _weights_.”  
  
(He looks very satisfied with that burn. He shouldn’t. It wasn’t good.)  
  
You yell, there it is!  
  
“Oh here we goes…”  
  
He _does_ think you’re useless! He admits it!  
  
“Everybody’s favorite martyrs.”  
  
Why won’t he let you do anything?  
  
“Cause you don’ts even tries!”  
  
Because he won’t tell you what to do!  
  
“I shouldn’t _has_ to tells it to yous!” He spins to you, but quickly rights his neck to face the road. “You shoulds _knows_ what to does, buts you _don’ts_ , so I gots to does alls of its! As usuals!”  
  
You say he hates to share credit, is what the problem is.  
  
“De problems ams I gots used to you’s riding mine coattails.” He reclines, steering with one hand. “I gots no one to be’s mad ats but mineself.”  
  
Rage froths within you. He’s just! He’s so! Everything! Hate! Bad! The Worst! GuUH! You say you want to feel needed.  
  
“You wants to knows what’s I _needs_?” His voice staggers upward with every word. “I needs you to _fucking adapts_. T’ings change, and if’s you don’ts change wifs dem you’re goingks to dies. Straighten ups and flies right, assholes. Be’s proactive.”  
  
Your ears burn, your throat is tight. You stand. He wants you to be proactive, does he?  
  
“Dat woulds be’s a nice change.”  
  
Okay. You take a step closer. His hair swings like a noose.  
  
“What does you t’inks you’re doingks? Sit downs you stupid dil--”  
  
You seize his loose hair in your fist and snap his neck back. In his shock he releases the wheel.  
  
“ _WHAT DE FUCKS?!_ ”  
  
How’s _this_ for proactive? And you throw him out of the driver’s seat.  
  
The force of your toss sends him flying to the back of the vehicle, and you assume the seat you so rightfully usurped. You take the wheel, pressing your foot to one of the pedals under the dashboard. The tank slows--whoops, wrong pedal, you press the other one--then hitches into high gear. The world outside your window blurs. How fast can this baby go? You flip a bunch of random switches.  
  
Skwisgaar, recovered, has his arms around your neck. The tank swerves through the guardrail and into the median.  
  
“Gives to mes de wheels!”  
  
He’s just scared of how good you are! The tank moves faster, faster.  
  
“You’re goingks to kills us!”  
  
No you’re not! This is easy! You’re doing amazing! You’re going to live forever! You--  
  
Beneath the tire treads, something clicks. Then detonates. Then everything cuts out.  
  
When your vision returns you’re in the gravel. Ears ringing. Face numb. You see the tank, laid out on its side, a wide hole smoking at its base. You see the remnants of a Regulation Dethklok Fun-A-Rooni-Blow-Em-Up Landmine, For Kids! ™ (In retrospect, marketing an explosive device to children was not one of your better ideas. You blame Murderface.) And you see Skwisgaar, mid-temper tantrum, stomping out a still-flaming bag. His arms are lacerated, his hair shimmering with shards of glass.  
  
“Fucks! Fucks! Fucks!” His stamps punctuate his words. He kicks the bag; it flops over unsatisfactorily. “ ** _Fuuuuuuuuuuuucks!_** ” He sees you stirring and skulks over. He hunches. Smacks you. “You alives? Cools. _Fuck_ yous.”  
  
You’re hurt, you say, reaching for him. He bats you away, glowering.  
  
“I’ll takes cares of its. Just likes I takes cares of _ev-er-y-t’ings._ ”  
  
You say the only think he’s taking care of is being _a dick_.  Nice. Now _that’s_ a burn. He grinds the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.  
  
“Does yous...does you _gets_ what ams happenings? T’ings wants to unalives us, and you’s just blows-dup de only ways we cans gets arounds? And halfs our supplies?”  
  
Your goodwill curdles. You stand, say he would have hit one of those mines sooner or later.  
  
“You can’ts pass de buck on dis! Takes ownership of your fuck ups, you ding dong!”  
  
He _always_ does this! Push you to the breaking point, then treat you like a child for having a reaction. You’re too frustrated to make words, so you shove him. He holds his palms up in surrender and sighs for what feels like a thousand years.  
  
“I’m nots doesing dis,” he says, walking backwards, down the road, away from you. “You wants to stands in de middle of de roads and has a cry? Fines.”  
  
You ask where he’s going. He hooks a thumb over his shoulder.  
  
“Ams goingks to fix dis.” He scowls. “ _Agains_.”  
  
Following the line of his gesture, you see the entrance to a deteriorating amusement park, rides immobile in their rusting tracks. It’s in such decay, it was likely closed down long before any of this end of the world stuff kicked in. The welcome sign is missing letters, but from their faint outlines you can piece together a name. **_WONDERLAND_**. Skwisgaar is already across the threshold.  
  
“Soons as I finds us a new rides and some foods we’s out of heres,” he calls as he enters an arcade to the right of the entrance. “Tries nots to fuck ups too bads befores I do.”  
  
You say he’s an asshole. He doesn’t answer.  
  
The last thing you want is to be around hissy-fit Skwisgaar, so you take a hard left, toward a weather-battered carousel. The ride holds a menagerie of beasts, their paint washed out and chipping. You wind around the outside of it, giving each animal a friendly pat on the head. Nice lion. Nice tiger. Nice bear. Nice--oh. You pause at a decapitated horse, rainwater collected within its hollow body. You pet its belly. It’s still a nice horse, even without a head.  
  
Across the grounds you hear a crash. Skwisgaar storms out of the arcade, empty-handed, and ping pongs from concession stand to concession stand. His search is unfruitful, his irritation mounting. Though you’re very much in his line of vision, he pointedly does not look at you. God. He’s the worst.  
  
Besides the carousel is a cluster of booths containing an array of carnival games. Ring toss, water gun race, knock over the cans and win a prize. Prizes! A chance to stock up on cuddly new friends! You hurdle over the counter of Hot Shot Basketball and drop to your knees. Your excitement dissolves; your new friends have seen better days. Surrounding you are piles of moldering stuffed animals, fur matted with dirt. The ground is peppered with clumps of white stuffing. There’s something strange about these friends, and not just because they’re all unauthorized knock-offs of well known characters. In place of eyes are yawning holes, revealing the mealy stuffing within. The bottom halves of their faces are slashed into open, uneven smiles. All of them look like this. You pick up an orange, pill-shaped, overall-wearing friend. Thumbing the fraying edges of its mouth, you realize these tears are recent. The park is not as abandoned as you thought. You are not alone.  
  
You peer over the counter at Skwisgaar, within the cage housing the bumper cars. You watch him try, and fail, to get one of the cars operational. You should warn him. You _should_ warn him.      
  
_“Maybes I ams tireds from carryingks your weights.”  
  
__“You shoulds knows what to does, buts you don’ts, so I gots to does alls of its!”  
  
__“I’ll takes cares of its. Just likes I takes cares of ev-er-y-t’ings.”  
  
_ You tuck your new friend under your arm, climb out of the booth, and say nothing. If he’s so _smart_ , he’ll figure it out.  
  
You move on to the next ride, a ring of cars connected on a tilted circular track. It’s enclosed in a warped wooden structure, a tunnel at the back concealing half of the cars. The name, spelled in burnt-out colored bulbs, is **DEATHCLOCK’S METAL EXPRESS**. (That’s copyright infringement, Charles needs to sue their ass--oh, wait.) Decorating the exterior are demonic, airbrushed caricatures of you and the rest of the band. You turn to Skwisgaar’s portrait. Fuck that guy. You put your middle finger up at him. You put your other middle finger up at him. You turn around, unbutton your jeans and flash your bare ass at him, one middle finger still raised. Yeah. That’ll show him.  
  
As you wander alongside the cars, a shadow slithers through your periphery. You double back. No one is there. But on the ferris wheel platform at the center of the grounds, you see a backpack, filled to capacity. That bag was _not_ there before. You hang back, concealed by a jutting wooden panel, but see Skwisgaar climb the ride’s ramp and hunch to examine it. Blinded by his desperation to find something, _anything_ useful, he ruts through backpack like a madman.  
  
From your vantage point, you see what he cannot. A figure rises slow behind Skwisgaar’s squatting form, clutching in his hands a wooden bat. Your heart swells in your throat. You open your mouth to scream, to warn him, but no sound emerges. You can only watch, in horrified silence, as the figure hoists the bat high above Skwisgaar’s head, and clobbers him. **_Fwunk_**! Skwisgaar crumbles.  
  
The figure bounces tauntingly around Skwisgaar’s unconscious body.  
  
“Oooooh GOT EM,” he says. “That's what you _get_ , son! That's what you _GET_ when you step on _OUR TURF_.”   
  
A white bandana is tied across bat boy’s face, the tips of his shaggy black hair dip-dyed green. His skinny arms are adorned in layers of children’s shin guards. Two more join him. One is a girl, pink hair knit in twin Dutch braids that reach the backs of her thighs. She wears a breastplate fashioned from silver hubcaps, secured with white zip ties, and a diamond-shaped cloth mask meant to be worn skiing. The other is stocky, shorter than his pals, encased in hockey pads. His head is hidden beneath the carousel horse’s missing head, the eye holes and teeth punched out.  
  
You duck into the nearest car, your breath rapid and shallow. They have not spotted you. Bat boy flips Skwisgaar onto his back using his foot.  
  
“Yoooooo you know who this dude looks like?” He leans in. “This fucker looks _exactly_ like Skwisgaar Skwigelf.”  
  
“Who?” says braids.  
  
“The guitarist, from Dethklok. You know.” He gestures at the airbrushed portraits, and you hunch lower. “Him!”  
  
“No way, bro,” says horse head, voice muffled. “Skwisgaar Skwigelf had long hair. This guy _doesn’t_ have long hair!”  
  
Braids shrugs. “I only listen to washboard cyberpunk. Dethklok’s catalogue never gelled with me. Too digital."  
  
A panic attack percolates in you. Oh God what do you do oh God what do you do.  
  
“Oh shit, son, he’s packing _heat_.” Bat boy relieves Skwisgaar of one of his guns and lets off a round into the air. “ _Count the shells, motherfuckaaaaaaaaaa_.”  
  
“What are we gonna do with him?” horse head asks. Bat boy quits firing. He strokes his bandanaed chin thoughtfully.  
  
“We gotta send a message. Let people know if you step to us, there’s gonna be consequences.”  
  
_Oh God what do you do oh God what do you do.  
  
_ “Know what would be sick?” he continues. “But like, _siiiiiiiiiiick_? Let’s fuckin’, let’s _eviscerate_ this guy.”  
  
**_OH GOD WHAT DO YOU DO OH GOD WHAT DO YOU DO_**.  
  
Bat boy claps his hands in glee. “Just like! Pull out all his guts, right? And fuckin’, hang ‘em all over the place? Like a fuckin’ human butchery? No one will ever fuck with us again.”  
  
Braids takes a knee and unsheaths a knife from a holster on her thigh. She inches up Skwisgaar’s shirt with the edge of the blade.  
  
“I _have_ always wanted to hold a pancreas in my hands.”  
  
“I don’t know, guys,” says horse head. “Isn’t that a little excessive? Can’t we just take all his stuff and throw him on the highway?”  
  
“Where’s the fun in that?” Bat boy kneels beside braids. “Gut him, Madison.”  
  
She turns to him. “I told you not to call me that.”  
  
“Right, sorry, gut him _Thunder Bitch_.”  
  
“Why do we have to keep having this conversation, Cayden?”  
  
“Why do you insist on having an apocalypse name! Fuck!”  
  
“Guys, please,” horse head whines. “Not again.”  
  
They’re distracted, do something, do something **_SKWISGAAR IS GOING TO DIE UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING SO DO SOMETHING YOU PIECE OF SHIT_**.  
  
At your feet is an oblongular piece of metal. You pick it up. In your other hand you hold your new friend, soft but solid. You kiss it on the forehead (bluh, gross, it tastes like a toilet) stuff the metal into its mouth to weight it, summon every bit of strength you possess, and hurl it across the park. It flies in a perfect arc over bumper cars, beyond the decrepit funnel cake and soft pretzel stands, and lands with a resounding **_BANG_** on the metal slide of the log flume, on the opposite side of the park. You smile. Good work, new friend.  
  
All three of them whirl to the sound.  
  
“There’s someone else here,” braids says as she gets to her feet.  
  
“They found our hideout!” Horse head chirps, already sprinting in the log flume’s direction. Braids is in pursuit.  
  
“Stay with him,” she calls back, but bat boy has already leapt into the dirt.  
  
“No way, my fuckin’ DS is in there! They’re not taking that shit!”  
  
“What if he wakes up?”  
  
“You see how hard I hit him?” Their voices grow fainter. “He’s not waking up, like, ever.”  
  
The statement is an icepick to the chest, but you don’t have time to dwell on it. Coast clear, you sneak to the ferris wheel. Sliding beneath the platform railing, you creep beside him. You pinch his wrist between your index finger and thumb, lift it, release. It drops like a stone. Bad.  You lay your head on his chest. _Heartbeat._ _Good._ You shake him, whispering, sleepy time is over! You need to get out of here! He doesn’t answer.  
  
Fuck, fine, okay, you can do this. You drag Skwisgaar to the edge, then heave him across your shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Wouldn’t be the first time you had to lug Skwisgaar’s passed-out ass from one location to another. Of course, those times he was just drunk, and not full of head trauma so severe he might never be the same _put a pin in the panic you need to focus_. You take a breath. Okay. Okay. You can’t make a break for the entrance, you’ll be spotted and overtaken. Plus you need a ride. You assess the grounds. Through the rungs of the ferris wheel, in back right corner of the park, you see an asphalt track. Go Karts. That’ll work.  
  
In the distance you hear a shout. You stay low to the ground.  
  
“He’s gone! I _told_ you to watch him!”  
  
“Well, why didn’t _you_ watch him, _Thunder Bitch_? More like _Dumb-der Bitch_.”  
  
“I’m going to kick your ass, Cayden.”  
  
“Guys! The park’s not that big. Let’s split up, he can’t be far.”  
  
Shit. There’s too much open space between the ferris wheel and the track. If you go the direct route you’ll be seen. You need another plan. Think. Think. You think of Murderface, explaining the logistics of some long forgotten battle of a war you’ve never heard of.  
  
_“Schometimesch the moscht effective schtrategy isch finding cover and waiting for the opportunity to schtrike._ ”  
  
In the far left corner of the park is a Tilt-A-Whirl. The car furthest from you is turned away, the seat facing out into the wilds beyond the park. Cover. You stand, groaning as you adjust to Skwisgaar’s weight. You glance back; you can’t carry Skwisgaar _and_ all the bags. You desert them, hope Skwisgaar will forgive you later.  
  
You keep you steps light as you cross the Tilt-A-Whirl’s metallic platform. Reaching the far car, you set Skwisgaar down across the seat, then sidle up beside him. He is still very unconscious. You say, in a hush, he’s being very difficult right now. He doesn’t answer.  
  
“I’m lookin’, alright! Fuck! Are you on the rag or what?”  
  
Bat boy’s voice is coupled with the heavy plunk of his footsteps, padding gradually across the Tilt-A-Whirl platform. He clods in your direction, tapping the bat along the aluminnum siding of each car he passes. _Durng. Durng. Durng._ You draw your knees to your chest. _Durng. Durng. Durng_. You hold Skwisgaar close. _Durng. Durng. Durng._ It stops. The tip of a boot appears on the ground beside your car. You don’t breathe. It stays there for a moment, then vanishes.  
  
“They’re not here! _Yeah_ I checked all of them! What are you, my fuckin’ _mom_?”  
  
His steps fade. You exhale. You keep moving. Between the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Go Karts is a fortune telling booth, brick facade painted with images of moons, suns and stars. The back wall bears an illustration of a dark haired, serene-looking woman, hands curved around her glowing crystal ball. You want to ask her if things are going to be okay. You don’t. You keep moving.  
  
Skwisgaar’s legs clunk against yours as you run, fast as your body will allow. The Go Kart track is in your sights. Encircling it is a waist-high chain link fence. You bend and, carefully, lower Skwisgaar to the ground on the other side. Freedom is so close. But before you can hop the fence, you hear an overconfident, “ _Gotcha, motherfuckaaaaa!_ ”  
  
There’s bat boy, braids and horse head not far behind. By the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, you can tell he’s grinning. That’s about to change.  
  
“It’s like the fuckin’ home run derby in this bitch,” he drawls, twirling the bat like a katana. He clasps the handle tight. “And I’m fuckin’--”  
  
He raises the bat and comes at you full force.  
  
“ _Paaaaaaaaaaaapiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_ \--”  
  
He takes a swing. But it never connects. You catch the end of the bat mid-air, rip it out of his hands. And break it in two.  
  
The light goes out of bat boy’s eyes. “Oh, fuck.”  
  
Your fury floods your senses, coursing through you swift and hot. Everything goes red. When your first punch makes contact with his face you don’t even feel it. You don’t feel anything besides the unrelenting need to bludgeon this little shit into oblivion. You’re vaguely aware he’s screaming. You don’t care. You just keep wailing on him. Again. And again. And again. Againagainagainagain _againagainagain_ ** _againagainagain_**.  
  
In a flash of lucidity you see the girl. She’s charging, knife raised. She is unskilled with it. As she lunges, you think of Pickles, bounding from foot to foot, smirking.  
  
_“Tha only true weapons allowed inna street fight are yer fists. If someone’s comin’ at ya with a knife, this is how ya disarm em.”  
  
_ You lean out of the range of her strike. As her arm crosses your body, you snatch her wrist and, with your other hand, knock handle loose from her grip. Not enough. You bend her arm behind her back. Pull. _Pop!_ as her arm separates from its socket. She shrieks. You toss her aside as easily as a rag doll. She rolls over, limp arm wrapping around her stomach.   
  
“ _Vince_!” she wails. “ _Vince do something!_ ”  
  
Resume your beating. Fuck this guy. Fuck this park. Fuck this fucking apocalypse. And fuck _you_. Fuck you the hardest of all.   
  
“I’m sorry!”  
  
You stop. Your knuckles are coated in blood. Your throat is shredded. Looking up, you see horse head. His palms are up. Water drips off the jagged ends of his mask.  
  
“I’m sorry we hurt your friend, please don’t kill mine! They’re all I have left.” He folds his hands in prayer. “ _Please_.”  
  
You’re kneeling on bat boy’s chest. He draws short, wet breaths. Braids caterwauls, clutching her dislocated shoulder. You look down at bat boy, his face concave. His bandana came loose. Without it, you realize he’s just a kid. They’re all just kids.  
  
You wipe your hands on his shirt, and get up. You snap at horse head, demand he get you your bag. _And_ the bait bag. He obliges. As he trots back, you forcefully ask which Go Kart is fastest. He points to one with green flames painted on the side.  
  
“I fixed up that one,” he says weakly. “My dad was a mechanic.”  
  
He’s close enough you can see his eyes through the horse’s punched-out ones. Brown. So dark you can’t distinguish the pupil from the iris. He opens a gate you hadn’t seen, and you scoop up Skwisgaar’s still-motionless body. It takes a moment to figure out how you’ll both fit--you situate him in your lap, his long legs nearly grazing the ground, and hold his head to your shoulder. The Go Kart revs, and you navigate off the track, into the grounds and out, out to the highway. Before you go, you chance a look back at the miserable huddle you left in your dust. You don't regret what you did. But you don't feel good about it, either.  
  
You ride for miles. The road is rough, so you keep the speed low. No amount of jostling stirs Skwisgaar. You feel his breath at your fingertips, but it doesn’t bring you the comfort it should. You tell him you’re going to find some place nice to spend the night. He doesn’t answer.  
  
Night comes as you come upon an empty store, windows busted open allowing easy entry. Within are rows and rows of shelves, filled with reams of colorful, patterned fabric. You carry Skwisgaar passed them all, like an awful B-Movie sea creature carrying its conquest across the beach, and lay him down on a table of scraps. You need to set up your tent, but it can wait a minute. Sitting near the table’s end, you gingerly lift his head and place it on your crossed legs. Dried blood clusters in the hair near his temple. Despite everything, he looks peaceful. You think of a story you learned as a child, about kind fairies and pricked fingers and breaking spells with a--shame intrudes like an uninvited guest. It's easier to think he's under some kind of magic spell than think about the fact that he was hit so hard he might wake up blind, or wake up with no memory, or not wake up at all.  
  
You say you're sorry. He doesn't answer.  
  
But then, he does. His fingers twitch. His brow creases. He takes a deep, deep breath, and as he exhales his eyes flutter open. It’s magic. You beam, say hello, try not to cry. His hooded gaze goes right through you. With the sleepy, confused cadence of a child, he murmurs, “Mom?"  
  
You have no idea what to say. You say nothing. You think of Nathan, seated beside you on the floor of some unknown nightclub. You were strung out, messy, sad. He laid his hand on the side of your face with a gentleness you didn’t know he had.  
  
“ _I uuuuhhhhhhhh I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. But, uh, my mom used to do this for me after I puked my brains out as a kid. So. Yeah.  Does this...help....? Are we good?”  
  
_ You cup Skwisgaar’s cheek, scratching at the skin just behind his ear. You try to stay soft, comforting. You wonder if this is a thing all good moms do. You wonder if your mom is alive.  
  
Skwisgaar turns his head into your thigh and weeps, quietly, until dawn.


	5. Chapter 5

It rains for three days. Settling in one spot for too long is nerve-wracking, but with poor weather and an incapacitated party companion, you have little other option. You spend the first day scouring the store end to end, turning it inside out, in search of something, _anything_ to help you. Nothing but useless craft supplies and endless rolls of fabric. After curtaining the doors and windows with dark cloth, you set up camp in the far corner of the shop. Skwisgaar’s tent was destroyed in the tank wreck, so you both crowd into yours--a relic from the Limited Edition Dethklok Roughin’ It Campburger Time Set for Regular Jackoffs ™ line, a failed attempt to capitalize on the outdoorsy trend. Each tent had been designed to suit your personal tastes, and yours, castle-shaped and brightly-hued, is most majestic of all.  
  
In the rare moments when Skwisgaar is awake, he’s scattershot. He mumbles about dizziness and headaches. He giggles to himself, then coughs up dainty, viscous streams of vomit. He doesn’t remember how he was injured and you’re not exactly inclined to tell him. Guilt eats at you like a parasite. You don't know how to fix this. You roleplay with yourself, try to figure out how Skwisgaar would handle things if the situation were reversed. After your captivity, sleeping in a bed, a _real_ bed, was the first thing that made you feel human again. You bury him in softness; bags of polyester stuffing repurposed as pillows, swaths of fuzzy fabric becoming blankets. Midway through the second day, just as you’re about to venture out for more, he places his hand lightly on top of your wrist.  
  
“ _Snälla_ ,” he murmurs, a caged look in his eyes you’ve never seen before. “ _Stanna.”  
  
_ That first week after the rescue, you muddled through your hospital stint in a haze of morphine. Whenever the disorientation ebbed, it was such a relief to be greeted by a familiar face. So often, that face was Skwisgaar’s. You keep quiet and keep close.  
  
On the third day your anxiety threatens to split you in two. You count ceiling tiles--467 and a half. You go through your inventory, twice. You're running low on food. You try not to think about that.  
  
While Skwisgaar sleeps you weave through the store’s disheveled aisles. One in particular is populated with all kinds of craft books. _Everything You Need to Know About Wire and Beaded Jewelry But Were Too Stupid to Ask_. _The Moron’s Manual on Hand Embroidery_. _Learn to Quilt, Idiot_. You leaf through a few guides on how to make your own stuffed animals. Compared to the complex instructions included with your model airplane kits, these patterns are playful and easy to follow. You need a distraction. A lightbulb goes off.  
  
You return to the tent with a stockpile of bits from the scrap table, needles, threads. Your first few attempts are clumsy, more blob shaped than friend shaped, but by the fourth you’ve gotten the hang of it. Skwisgaar comes around and meets a whole army of new friends, each with their own long, needlessly complicated backstory. He eyes you with skepticism as you plant them in a semi-circle around him, granting him the captive audience he’d been lacking. You introduce them one by one. Here's Annalise DerVefferhouven, a floral monkey, who designs her own line of banana handbags. This is Princess Cleopatra Sparklepriss, a striped octopus, beloved by all of her royal subjects. And here is Kevin, a blue duck, currently under investigation for tax fraud.  
  
When you finish Skwisgaar says nothing. He picks up Ulv, a white polka dotted dog, and stares into her featureless visage for two, three minutes. He tucks her against his chest. You wait. His eyes flit to you. A ghost of a smile, a whisper of personality.  
  
“You ams.” You know what’s coming before he even says it. It’s so played out but you don’t even care. Your grin hurts your cheeks. “ _Dildos_.”  
  
From outside the tent, you hear a voice.  
  
“A tender moments between weary travelers,” it says, “shared, in this, the final moment of their lives.”  
  
Silhouetted on the tent wall stretches the shadow of a woman. Her voice is measured and clear, every word annunciated with meticulous precision. In her hands is a shotgun.  
  
“I'm _Nathalia Rodriguez_ , coming to you live from.” She cocks the gun. “ _The scene of a murder_.”  
  
Another voice, echoing in a distant part of the store, joins hers. Another woman. Shrill.  
  
“You’ve got to stop doing that fake news shit, it’s _not funny_. It’s **_never_** been funny.”  
  
“It's funny _every time_.”  
  
The entrance of your tent tears away, and in the space stands a woman you recognize. You’ve seen her on billboards, on the sides of buses. During your book promotion tour, you sat on her faux-homey set and bitched about all the injustices Skwisgaar laid upon you. You held back screams as she grilled Rockso about his seedy past, obliterating any chance for him to mount a comeback. This is that reporter lady.  
  
With the gun, she beckons for you to exit.  
  
“Hello there,” she says warmly. “We’ll be relieving you of all your items. Also your lives.”  
  
As you skulk out, a third woman passes you to enter the tent. You don’t get a good look at her before she’s on her knees, rummaging through your supplies. Strapped to her back is a modified toddler bike seat, within which sits a gurgling baby. You and Skwisgaar sit on the floor, your backs literally and figuratively to the wall. Skwisgaar rests his forehead on his drawn up his knees. The reporter has her gun trained on you. You feel her scrutinizing every inch of your person, dissecting your very being. You _just_ escaped death, and already you’re staring it down again. Ugh, you’re bad at this.  
  
“You look familiar,” she says, her tone cool.  
  
Fear spikes within you, but you keep your expression neutral. You shrug with one shoulder, letting your hair shield your face. The woman in the tent picks up Lt. Major Dilford Davenport III, a pink elephant, and hands it back to the baby. The baby suckles Davenport’s foot.  
  
“If I didn’t know any better,” the reporter drawls, “I’d say you’re a dead ringer for...but that’s silly. They’re dead. All our sources say so.”   
  
You feel your heartbeat in your eardrums. The other woman emerges, holding everything her thin arms can carry, and oh shit, you know _her_ too. The last time you saw her she was stupid crazy pregnant, but the dark ponytail and _over-it_ perma-scowl are the same. She looks askance at you and her eyebrows pump, only slightly, enough to let you know she's got you _pegged_. You can only hope she’ll keep her mouth shut.  
  
Skwisgaar rocks back and catches sight of her. His cognitive gears groan to life, and he brightens.  
  
“Hey! I knows yous!” he cries, pointing at her. “I wents to your shitty weddings!”   
  
You hush him but he puts his entire palm over your face and shoves your way.  
  
“You marrieds our pal’s shitty brothers!” He elbows you, ignoring your quiet pleas to shut the fuck up. “Remembers? Remembers how mads Pickle was? Well, _yous_ probablys don't remembers, you gots so sloppy I hads to takes cares d’of yous. Pfft.”  
  
The reporter whips her head back and forth between you and the other woman.  
  
“Weren’t you married to--”  
  
She nods.  
  
“So that makes them--”  
  
She nods again, slower, deliberate, using every muscle in her neck. The reporter smiles.  
  
“Huh. An unexpected development. The Madame is going to want to know about this.”  
  
The woman--what was her name again? Amy? Andrea?--has lost interest in the conversation. She plops all of your items in front of you and, now uninhibited, examines her nails. They’re painted the color of blood. The reporter returns the gun to its holster on her back.  
  
“Grab all that and let’s get a move on. That’s not a request.”  
  
Isn't she going to kill you, you ask? That was dumb. Why did you ask that?!  
  
“Oh, I was never going to _kill_ you.” She raises her palm as though she’s about to backhand you, and when you flinch, she cackles. “I just never get tired of watching a man squirm.”  
  
You gather your things and they escort you out. Skwisgaar keeps pace with the other woman, holding a finger out for the baby. The baby clutches it in his tiny fist.  
  
“Where ams your shitty husbands?”   
  
Dangling from the woman’s belt--Amber! Her name is Amber!--is a chalkboard, the size of record. Unhooking from its chain link, she withdraws a piece of pink chalk from behind her ear and scribbles something. When she finishes, she gives him, then you, a once over, and flips it around to display her work.  
  
“ _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯"  
  
_ Outside the shop is a tricked-out pick-up truck; the exposed engine is shiny and chrome, the massive tires, more suited for a monster truck, are decorated in spikes. A blonde woman (the one who yelled at the reporter, you assume), loads your stolen Go Kart into the bed with ease. A half-moon scar arcs across the bridge of her nose. As you come closer, her badger-like features screw up in disgust. Jeez, you know _her_ too! Harpy! Slut! Cheating bitch what ruined Nathan’s life!  
  
“Oh _fuck me_ ,” Rebecca Nightrod groans. “You dumb shits are alive.”  
  
Skwisgaar looks back and forth between the women and you, delighted, his dorky chuckle rumbling at the bottom of his throat. Head trauma Skwisgaar is not great at reading the room. To him, this is one big wonderful joke, and these three murder ladies are definitely not about to usher you to your death.  
  
“Wasn’t yous in a comas?” he chirps.  
  
She sneers. “I got better.”  
  
The ladies climb into the cab, and you’re relegated to the back, you and Skwisgaar squeezed on opposite sides of the Go Kart. The ride through the wasteland is swift. It shakes any amusement out of Skwisgaar, and he spends most of the trip vomiting over the truck’s side. The surrounding countryside is desolate, ruined. Rebecca drives expertly. A point shimmers on the horizon, a building of glass and steel like a magnificent metallic bird’s nest. A stadium, probably used for the American football games Nathan loved so much. Encircling the arena are a plethora of booby traps; half-decaying corpses rot on barbed wire barriers. Stress stirs in your stomach. What’s waiting for you?  
  
The truck comes to an abrupt stop, and Skwisgaar’s head bangs into the Go Kart’s steering wheel. He moans in agony. That can’t be good.  
  
“We’re here, dickweeds,” Rebecca spits. “Get the fuck out of my car.”  
  
The reporter and Amber escort you, roughly, through a throng of heavily-armed women. Recognition blinks across their faces as you walk by, their stares blazing. The reporter shoves you into an elevator, and when the doors slide closed, cutting them off, you’re relieved. It’s short lived.  
  
“I wonder what The Madame will do with you,” the reporter taunts, punching a switch at the top of a column of buttons. The elevator jerks to life. “Maybe she’ll throw you in the snake pit, maybe she’ll kill you on sight. Either way it’s going to be fun. For us, not for you.”  
  
Your stomach drops to your feet as the car propels you up to your doom. You look at Skwisgaar, hands over his eyes, slumping against the wall. Amber draws a skull on her chalkboard and holds it above him. Okay, _rude_.  
  
The elevator stops, and a chime sounds. The doors open to a lavish skybox, the green decor tasteful, elegant, and a little bit threatening. Portraits of regal-looking women line the walls. Surveying the field below through the floor-to-ceiling windows is a woman, wearing a white tiered cape lined in fur. A goblet of red wine hangs from her fingers. The ram horns adorning her helmet are wreathed in wild black curls.  
  
Without warning, your face is shoved into the room’s plush carpet. Skwisgaar grunts as he, too, hits the floor. The elevator doors close behind you with a _sshh_. Skwisgaar looks at you. You look at him. A beat. The woman turns. Her green eyes meet yours, and widen. The air goes out of your lungs. The goblet tumbles out of her hand and shatters.  
  
“Oh, my God.”  
  
Your heart swells. Standing before you is Abigail.   
  
In the next instant she’s on her knees and you’re crushed against her chest. Her embrace is tight, so tight, and yet not tight enough. You never want to let her go. Abigail lashes an arm out to corral in Skwisgaar, and the three of you form a snug clump, not saying anything. No words are necessary.  
  
After a time Abigail pulls back and wipes away your tears with the back of her hand.  
  
“Our scouts said Mordland was wiped off the map,” she says, eyes shifting between you and Skwisgaar. “How did... _what_ did...”  
  
Her eyebrows cinch, and she gently takes Skwisgaar by the chin. She tilts his head to better see the sprawling bruise on his temple.  
  
“What _happened_?”  
  
You say he was maybe, sorta, a little bit, _um_ , hit with a bat.  
  
“Haha, whats?”  
  
“Oh, buddy boy.” She pulls down on the skin beneath his eyes with her thumbs. “You got concussed real good, huh?”  
  
Skwisgaar flashes a grin, gives a thumbs up, then tips to the side and pukes.  
  
“We need to get you some medical attention,” she says as she rises. “And a bath, you guys are repugnant. _I_ need a bath, now, from being around you this long.”  
  
A billion questions swirl through your mind and burst from your mouth like word vomit. What is this place? How did she get here? How did those ladies get here? Can you wear her cape? You continue to pepper her with questions the whole elevator ride down to the medical bay. She lays a hand on your shoulder.  
  
“We’ll get to all of that. But for now, and I mean this will all the love in my heart, please shut up.”  
  
So that’s a maybe on the cape? She presses her lips together. You shut up.  
  
You arrive in the home team locker room, in the belly of the stadium. It’s empty save for one woman, slender, kind of mousy, her chin-length brown hair clipped away from her face with two blue barrettes. There’s a flicker of familiarity, the inkling you have seen her somewhere before, but cannot place where. Skwisgaar, however, lights up when he sees her, the most enthusiasm he’s shown in days. When she sees him she does a double take and gasps, holding her hands in prayer over her mouth.  
  
“ _Skwisgaar?!_ ”  
  
As he goes to hug her, it hits you. During Skwisgaar’s ill-fated attempt to be a regular jack-off, after he quit the band. You saw this girl in some crappy bar in Sweden, glowering, latched to Skwisgaar like a territorial slug. On the flight out you had been annoyed your tenure as lead guitarist was cut so short. But seeing him there, smiling, laughing, holding hands (holding hands?!) with some _girl_ kicked up a bunch of weird feelings, ones that could only be alleviated by beating the shit out of Murderface. Those feelings return to you now. You’re insignificant, small.  
  
“Toki you remembers Katrine, my goirlfriend from whens I moves back home?”  
  
Actually you don’t remember anything about her at all, to be honest! Guess she didn’t leave much of an impression! Totally forgettable! Ha ha ha!  
  
“Dat ams okay,” she coos. When she looks at you, something behind her soft features hardens. “Skwisgaar tolds me _so_ much abouts yous, I feels like I knows _exactly_ who you ams.”  
  
When did he have time to talk about you? They dated ( ** _dAtEd?!?_** ) for like a minute. While she examines Skwisgaar’s bruise he mutters something to make her blush, and oh boy you don’t like that _at all_. Abigail’s hand, still on your shoulder, pulses.  
  
“Katrine was a pediatrician in Sweden,” she says. (Like _that’s_ hard!) “Skwisgaar is in more than capable hands.”  
  
You look down at your own hands and think they are _also_ very capable, but whatever. It’s fine. It’s nothing. You’re not mad.  
  
“How about I give you a tour?” Abigail says as she leads you out. You chance a glance back. The two of them chitter away in Swedish, so you only catch a few words. But then Skwisgaar asks her something and she hesitates, gnawing at her lower lip. Her reply is low, her voice sympathetic. Skwisgaar’s gleeful expression sinks like wet sand. You hear him sigh a quiet, mournful “ _Oh_.” before Abigail tugs you out of the room.  
  
“Forming a self-sustaining, utopic enclave of women has been something of a pet project of mine for a while,” she says as you walk down a concrete corridor. “The world ending could _not_ have come at a better time."  
  
You ask how she got this place.  
  
“I acquired it by,” she smirks, a dark glint in her eye. “Well, I _acquired_ it, let’s leave it at that.”  
  
The light of day appears at the end of the tunnel. You ask what she means.  
  
“It used to belong to someone else, and now it belongs to me. That’s all you need to know.”  
  
As you draw nearer to the exit, Abigail quickens her pace to move ahead of you.  
  
“And I’ve been able to transform this blighted symbol of the fragility of the male ego into something _better_. Something that _matters_.”  
  
She sweeps her arms out as you step into the sunlight and onto the field. When your eyes adjust to the light, you’re dumbstruck. All throughout the stadium are women. And not just any women, but women you _know_. That crazy German whore who tried to steal Nathan’s dick leads a group of ex-Klokateers, unmasked but distinguishable by the brands on the backs of their necks, in a combat training session. Members of the All Lady Dethklok Tribute Band work with Rebecca to service several gargantuan vehicles. The far endzone has been torn up and in its place is a lush garden, being tended to by Nathan’s ex Rachel--Rachel! Wonderful Rachel!--who spots you and waves with her spade. Every woman you and the guys ever liked or hated or mocked or ignored or put your you-know-whats-in is _here_. In a way, it makes sense. In several more ways, it makes no sense at all.  
  
Abigail intuits your confusion. “Pretty crazy right?”  
  
You trail her to the 50 yard line, where several lounge and Adirondack chairs are set up around a campfire. Amber is there, changing her baby’s diaper. Overhead, a dump truck-sized four-screen Jumbotron plays Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” on a loop.  
  
“For a lot of women,” Abigail says, tone sharpening, “the world was shit long before it started ending. I wanted to create something severed from a patriarchal society designed to keep its most marginalized groups at the bottom of the pile. I wanted to build a space where women could not only survive, but _thrive._ And I've done that.”  
  
You ask if this is a cult.  
  
“It's not a cult.”  
  
Amber closes one eye and pinches her fingers.  
  
“If anything we’re a coven,” says Rachel, appeared at your side with a basket of vegetables on her hip. She takes out an ear of corn and waves it like a wand. “You know, _witches_.”  
  
Amber waggles her fingers at her baby, then pushes its shirt up and blows a raspberry on its belly. It squeals.  
  
A busty woman, who you recognize as the interior designer who assisted with the Mordhaus’s remodel--Fuck! Every woman you’ve ever known really _is_ here!--approaches Abigail with trepidation.  
  
“Excuse me, Madame,” she says, “you presence required at a meeting of The Council.”  
  
Abigail frowns. “There’s no Council meeting today.”  
  
“An emergency meeting has been called. Some members have concerns regarding your.” She cuts her eyes at you and adjusts her glasses. “ _Guests_.”  
  
She rubs her forehead. “When are they meeting?”  
  
“Now, Madame.”  
  
Abigail sighs and turns to you.  
  
“Listen to me. I don’t know how long you’ll be able to stay here. But as long as you _are_ here, I’m going to protect you.” She pushes your hair behind your ear. “That’s a promise.”  
  
After the rescue, Abigail took a sabbatical to spend time with her family. But the two of you spoke every day. FaceTime, Facebook, SnapChat, email, phone calls, any form of communication you could conceive. But as The Half Man gained power and you were pushed deeper into isolation, her messages thinned to a trickle, then stopped completely. You thought the worst. But you were wrong! She's alive, you're both alive. The thought of being separated again makes your guts ache. But you smile, tell her you understand, and watch her leave. You spend the rest of the evening in relative ease. You take a shower, standing under the spigot for what feels like hours, relishing the feeling of being clean. Rachel prepares you a hot meal, which you devour. You don’t remember the last time you ate something that didn’t come from a can or a tube. It’s nice, to let your guard down a little. But only a little.  
  
Night falls. Skwisgaar is moved from the medical bay to one of the lodgings built into the stands, so you go to find him. Skwisgaar’s girlfriend sits outside the entrance of his lodging, of _course_ , she’s got nothing better to do. You choke down your pride and ask to see him. She’s drinking a box of apple juice, sucking on the straw purposefully, like she’s trying to slurp every last drop. She squishes it and tosses it aside.  
  
“He ams sleepings. Goodbyyy _yyyes_!”  
  
You still want to see him, you hiss.  
  
“Why woulds he wants to see de ones whats gots him hoirts ins de foirst place, eh?”  
  
A stab of regret. He told her that?  
  
“Noes.” Her smile is smug. “ _You_ dids.”  
  
This lady is the most annoying person on the planet.  
  
“I knows Skwisgaar. Ands I knows de last t’ings he wants or needs right nows ams _you_.”  
  
From within his room comes the meekest, “Toki?”  
  
Ha! Fuck you, lady! You stick your tongue out at her. She sticks hers out, too, harder. Her icy glare shoots daggers through you. You don’t care. You go inside. The room is small and dark. You fumble around for a moment before finding the bed, where Skwisgaar lies.   
  
You say you didn’t mean to wake him up.  
  
“You didn’ts. Couldn’ts sleep.” His arm unfurls toward your, dangling in the free space off the edge of the bed. “Lay downs wif me?"  
  
For Skwisgaar, this kind of vulnerability is new, and a bit alarming. Your nerves spark. You sit beside him and barely have a chance to lie down before he sidles up to you, buries his face in the crook of your arm. His skin is warm. He smells like soap.  
  
“I missed yous.”  
  
You say you weren’t apart that long.  
  
“Mm. Felts long.”  
  
The scratch of his stubble grazes your skin. In your less restrained moments you imagined him like this. Sweet. Comfortable. Wanting you. Cautious, you put a hand on the small of his back.  
  
“I always sleep betters when someones in beds wif me,” he says.  
  
So _that's_ why he brought a millions billions ladies to bed every night. He giggles.  
  
“You knows,” he says, “I didn’ts has my own beds until I was nines.”  
  
Really?  
  
“Mhm. Shared a beds wif my moms.”  
  
That stuns you. You can’t imagine how much more miserable your childhood would have been without the small comfort of your own room.  
  
“We didn’t has a lots of money,” he continues. “We lived ins a lots of differents crappy apartments. Most of dems only hads one rooms. You coulds touch de stoves wifouts gettings outs of bed.” His head lolls back to view you. “My moms hads dis joke, wanna hears it?”  
  
Sure.  
  
“She woulds ask--” he speaks in a high-pitch “-- _Skwisgaar, you wants breakfast in beds_? And I woulds say, ja! And she woulds rolls over and pretends to makes stuff whiles she was still ins de beds, huegh huegh huegh.” He pauses. “I guess it’s not dat funnies.”  
  
No, it is! His mom is a funny lady.  
  
“Huh. Ja.” He draws a long, slow breath through his nose, and on the exhale mutters the words, “She’s dead."  
  
The wind is knocked out of you. You ask him to repeat himself.  
  
“Katrine tells it to mes. She’s dead. Gones. Goodbye forevers.”  
  
Maybe Katrine made a mistake.  
  
“She saw my mom’s corpse, Toki. Dat ams euuughhhh pretty definitive proofs.”  
  
When you got news of your father's impending death, you were hit with a cannonball of conflicting emotions, so dense that you couldn't parse out a single one. Numbness engulfed you for weeks, months. It was awful.  
  
You tell him that sucks. Skwisgaar shrugs.  
  
“Does its? She wasn’t a good moms.”  
  
You say, softly, but she was _his_  mom.  
  
Skwisgaar’s gaze gets glassy. His cheek moves oddly, as if he's trying to fit his teeth together just so. He stares into a space beyond you, into a place where you cannot follow.  
  
“Ja.” he says. “Was.”  
  
He rolls away from you, says nothing else. You listen as his breathing grows shallow as he slips into sleep. Eventually, you do too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't recognize some of the ladies who cameoed in this chapter, don't worry! I've compiled them all [in this very convenient list,](https://little-murmaider.tumblr.com/post/167751534138/i-pulled-some-deep-cuts-for-the-cameos-in-chapter) just for you! Aren't I considerate! Yes.


	6. Chapter 6

You wake up restless and hot. If you slept for long it doesn’t feel like it, a pressure pulsing behind your eyeballs. Your skin is a suit two sizes too small. You need air. But when you attempt to get up, you’re stuck. Skwisgaar’s arm is slung across your middle, his body warming your backside, his breath cooling your neck. You manage to wriggle out without disturbing him. A sheet of hair falls across his closed eyelids. Before you go, you grant yourself the small indulgence of brushing it away from his face. He shifts into your contact, but does not awaken.  
  
Outside, the air carries the harsh sting before snow. A portion of the stadium’s roof is retractable and tonight it remains open, white steel support beams criss-crossing over a sky choked with dark clouds. The place is deserted, save for a figure lounging in the out-of-bounds lines on the far end of the field. Spotting you, it raises it’s arm to it’s full length like a diligent student. It’s Abigail. You wave back as you make your way down the stand’s steep steps, easily hopping the barrier at the first row and dropping to the turf. As you trot to her, you ask what she’s doing up.  
  
“I’m too wound up to sleep.”   
  
She pats the ground beside her, and you sit. The fake grass is rigid and chalky to the touch. Abigail’s stare is trained upward, into the murky miasma overhead. You lay your arm down, palm up, in the space between yours and Abigail’s legs. She wordlessly slides her hand in, interlocking her fingers with yours.  
  
You ask if she still gets the flashbacks.  
  
“Sometimes. None have been as bad as the Whole Foods incident.”  
  
The Whole Foods incident was bad. You do not speak of the Whole Foods incident.  
  
“Do you still get the nightmares?”  
  
Your night terrors had been visceral and constant, but you stopped getting them just as the rest of the band started getting theirs. The relief at their abrupt end was a temporary balm, outweighed by the guilt you may have passed them along to the guys as though it were an airborne virus. You don’t know if Skwisgaar still gets them. You didn’t think to ask.  
  
You say no.  
  
“That’s good, that’s progress,” she says with a smile. “What about the panic attacks?”  
  
You say you’ve got a lot of things to panic about these days.  
  
“I guess that’s true.”  
  
A lull. A bird perches for a moment on one of the support beams, fluffs its wings, then zips out of sight.    
  
You ask Abigail if she’s still angry. She barks a laughs.  
  
“ _Yuuuuuuuuup_. I’ve stopped trying not to be. The best I can hope for is to channel it into something,” she lifts her free hand and rotates her wrist dramatically, “ _productive_.”  
  
You close the gap between your bodies and place your head on her shoulder. Her grip tightens.    
  
“After everything that happened, I felt...broken. But not unfixable. I thought I could reassemble myself into the person I was before.” She pauses. “But when I tried, I realized parts of me that had always been there were gone. And in their place were these _new_ parts. Parts I didn’t like, or want.”   
  
You feel her swallow.  
  
“I’m not the same person I was before. I still don’t know _who_ this person is.”  
  
She releases you and looks down at her hands, turns them over, studies them as though they were foreign objects.  
  
“Maybe I never will.”  
  
A pit opens at the base of your heart. You shuffle around to sit before her and gently squeeze her upper arms. You say, _you_ know who she is. She’s smart, and kind, and brave, and she works so hard to make everything better for everyone else. And look! Look at all she’s done! She saved all these women! She built this big, beautiful cult!  
  
“It’s not a cult.”  
  
Whatever! The point is, yes, what happened to her _did_ change her. But it didn’t change the best parts of her. Nothing could.  
  
She gets misty and turns away, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the tips of her fingers.  
  
“I’m a cryer now, by the way. That’s new.”  
  
You tell her not to worry about it, you cry every day; she’ll get used to it. She chuckles under her breath, warmth returning to her features. But as quick as it appeared, it fades.  
  
“The Council doesn’t want you and Skwisgaar here. They think you’re a threat. But you’re not! I can convince them you’re not. I’ll need to call in a few favors, make some moves people won’t be happy with...”  
  
As she speaks, you remember how Abigail used scraps of her clothing to lessen the rub of the chains on your wrists and neck. How she gave you her shares of food, meager though they were. How, once you were free, she answered every single one of your phone calls, listened with empathy as you blathered about all your bad feelings, never once bringing up her own.   
  
You say they’re right, you can’t stay here. She looks crestfallen.  
  
“I can’t let you go back out there. You’re _safe_ here--”  
  
But no one else is. You’ll turn this community into a big fat target for something really, really bad.  
  
“We can handle ourselves--”  
  
You stop her. Explain, you’ve seen a lot of death. You’ve _caused_ a lot of death. You can’t add her to the body count. Her eyes well up again.  
  
“Toki…”  
  
You say, she spent so long protecting you. It’s your turn to protect _her_. She closes her eyes, shakes her head.  
  
“You’re settled on this, huh?”  
  
Yeah, you habit of doing whatever the hell you want. She giggles.  
  
“At least stay until Skwisgaar’s healed up.”  
  
That’s reasonable. So it’s agreed. Skwisgaar is deemed concussion free after two days, but at Abigail’s urging you stay a week. It’s a quiet one, and you relish the banality. You cook. You clean. You work out. You play peek-a-boo with Amber’s baby. It’s a good week. But the clock runs out on your little detour to normalcy and before you know it, you’re standing at the stadium’s entrance, saying your goodbyes. After learning of Rebecca’s proficiency with vehicles, Skwisgaar spent the week shadowing her. As a reward for his kinda-sorta-apprenticeship, she gifts you with a ride. Sleek. Cylindrical. The bottom half a vibrant yellow, the top half a fire-engine red--it’s a hot dog, it’s _shaped_ like a hot dog, she’s giving you a wienermobile and you’re the only one who thinks that’s mean. She _claims_ she’s giving it to you because it’s too tough to damage, but you _know_ she’s doing it to humiliate you. She’s successful.   
  
“Hey,” he interjects, and she scowls at the interruption. “Dids you learns to does all dis cars stuff heres?”  
  
She scoffs. “ _Please._ I’ve been fixing up cars since before my tits grew in. I bet Nathan never told you we met at a car show.”  
  
“Oh. Huh.”   
  
“Yeeee _aaaaAAAAaaah_ , **_HUH_**.” Her voice drips with condensation. “It’s _al_ ~most like I’m a multifaceted individual, and not just a vessel for your buddy to throw his _dick_ into! Fuck!”  
  
Skwisgaar’s mouth ticks up. “We shoulds haves hung outs more.”  
  
The handful of ladies who don’t actively hate you gather to bid their farewells. Rachel, Amber, some of the ex-klokateers. Katrine ignores you, but throws her arms around Skwisgaar, clutches him to her breast, gasping, half-weeping. (You resist the urge to slow clap for her performance.) Abigail stands at the end of the line. She turns to Skwisgaar first, and pulls him into an embrace. Before letting him go, her hand curves around the back of his neck, and she leads his ear to her lips. You see them moving, but cannot hear the sound. He nods as she speaks.  
  
“I wills,” he answers, leaning back and touching his forehead to hers. “I wills.”  
  
She turns to you. First, she hands you a folded slip of paper, which you tuck into one of your pockets.  
  
“That’s a map of everything within a 200 mile radius. It’s very thorough. _Don’t_ lose it.”  
  
You’ve already forgotten where you put it, but you don’t tell her that. She opens her arms, and you fall into them as if drawn by magnetic force. Her nails glide across your shoulder blades. She feels so much smaller than how you imagine her. She shifts to whisper something.  
  
“When this is all over, you come back and see me.” Her tone is urgent. “Okay? Alright? **Stay alive**. Do that for me.”  
  
Something tugs in your chest, a childish impulse that it’s not too late to call the whole thing off, never leave, stay with Abigail forever. But that’s not an option. She lets go and takes a step back, and you feel a piece of yourself break off and latch to her permanently.  
  
“Goodbye, Toki.”  
  
It’s too hard to say it back. You don’t. You say you’ll see her later, and climb into the car.  
  
Skwisgaar drives slow until you’re out of the cobweb of traps encircling the stadium, but once you’re out he floors it. The wienermobile has decent pick up, the landscape blurring outside your wide windows. Neither of you speak. To fill the silence, you flick on the radio.   
  
“ _Kssshhhhhhh_ ** _OH GOD_** _ksshhhhhhh_ ** _SO MUCH BLOOD_** _kssshhhhhhh_ ** _HELP ME SOMEONE PLEASE_** \--”  
  
You turn it off. Maybe you don’t need to listen to the radio.  
  
Skwisgaar points to your feet. “What ams dat under you’s seat?”  
  
You bend over to investigate, and discover a thick black booklet. Hefting it into your lap, you find it’s filled with pages of CDs, carefully labeled, each within their own individual slots. Some music might be good. Flipping through, you don’t recognize many of the band names. Lots of dumb pop from the 90s, stuff Skwisgaar would think too un-brutal enough to listen to.  
  
Skwisgaar taps one of the CD’s. “I knows dis one.”  
  
Wait. Really?  
  
“I hueeeeghhhh used dem to practice mine Ainglish.”  
  
_Really_?  
  
“Dey hads good diction,” he says, biting back a smile. “What cans I say?”  
  
Does he still remember the words?  
  
“Dey ams seared into mines brain, ja.”  
  
You tear the CD out. You _have_ to listen to it now.  
  
“Toki I ams nots goingks--”  
  
It’s too late. You stuff the disc into the player. The music blares obnoxious and loud. Skwisgaar shoots you a withering look.  
  
“I don’ts know whys you t’inks I’s going to does it, I’s not goingks _YOOOOOOO TELLA WHAT I WANT, WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT_ \--”  
  
You shriek with laughter, keening over, your sides hurting from the effort. Skwisgaar has accompanying hand motions, all ridiculous. He knows every word, executes it flawlessly. You spend the ride testing his knowledge of _other_ bubblegum bullshit, playing CD after CD, all of which he knows. (Every time he claims it was _just_ to practice english, nothing more, don’t read into it.) The atmosphere is light, the breeziest it’s been since you first embarked. It feels like you’re just two pals on a road trip, no worries, just good times and good tunes. You have to keep reminding yourself this is not that. You have to remind yourself there are stakes.  
  
You come upon a three-storied brick building, in a desolate town. Etched in the marble above the front entrance is a name: _Archangel Academy_. Skwisgaar decides it’s an adequate place to stop for the night. He keeps the car running as you try the front doors. Locked. You move to the side of the building to another door. Locked. Check the back. Locked. Find a hutch leading, you assume, to the basement. Padlocked. Great. Now what?  
  
Hanging out of the driver’s side window, Skwisgaar strokes his chin and ponders.  
  
“Dids you happens to see’s a fire excapes?”  
  
Yeah, on the other side. Why?  
  
He parks the craft beneath a rusted fire escape, as close as he can get to the building without scratching the paint off the car. He shuts it off, tosses you the keys, and scrambles onto the hood. It takes him a moment to find balance on the hot dog surface, but he does. Extending his arms to their full length, they graze the bottom of the ladder. He steels himself, squats, then leaps, snagging the third rung and folds himself into a teardrop shape. Kicking up, his feet find purchase on the lowest rung, and he scrambles up to the landing. With his bag, he smashes through the window nearest him, and steps in. You watch his shadow dart across the windows as he makes his way downstairs, before he emerges, looking smug, at a doorway behind you.  
  
You ask how the _fuck_ he learned to do that.  
  
“As a young mans I ehhhhhhhhh hads to sneaks outs of a lots of places.” He winks. “Ams de sames t’ing in revoirse.”  
  
Once inside, you realize this is a school, walls and floor the color of mud. It looks as though it has been empty for a while. The place is disheveled, as though it were evacuated in the middle of a school day. Abandoned lunch boxes and backpacks litter the ground. Scratch marks in the tile trace a trail to a stairwell and then vanish. You follow Skwisgaar into one of the classrooms, the desks upturned and mixed up in all different directions. In the doorframe is a dent, fibers of hair coiled around the fractured wood.  
  
The classroom’s decor is bright, cheerful. Billboards display illustrated essays detailing how students spent their summer vacation. You drag your fingers across waxy portraits of beach trips, baseball games, boat rides. One stops you dead in your tracks. A crude drawing of five figures, all smiling, holding hands, a rainbow arcing above them. At their feet, in black crayon, is the description. _Spent time with my family_.  
  
Apropos of nothing, Skwisgaar says, “I miss grilled cheeses.”  
  
You glance back, confused. He’s rooting through the drawers of the big desk at the front of the class, not meeting your eye.  
  
“It amn’ts my favorite foods,” he says. “It amn’ts evens top tens. But now I can’ts haves it no mores, it’s alls I cans t’inks abouts. It’s weirds, de t’ings you winds up missings.”  
  
The drawers of the desk groan as they open. You say you miss bubble wrap. Skwisgaar snickers.  
  
“I miss cucumber melons hand soap.”  
  
You miss the smell of just-sharpened colored pencils.  
  
“De sounds of a coffee makers starting ups.”  
  
Swimming.  
  
“Musicks.” He hesitates, treading lightly. “Ever since I was a kids, I always hads some kinds of melody in mine heads, you knows? But nows.” He puts two fingers to his temple and bends his thumb as though he were pulling a trigger. “Now it’s quiets.”  
  
That quiet unspools from him, clutters the room. You feel it wedge its way into you, leak into your thoughts. To break it, you ask him what he’s looking for. He makes a noise of triumph.  
  
“Dis."  
  
From the lowest drawer, he whips out an enormous bottle of tequila.  
  
“Wants to gets drunk?”  
  
Fuck yes, you do.  
  
Trading slugs from the bottle, the two of you wander the halls getting nice and sloshed. You’re startled how much your tolerance dropped in the past few weeks. It doesn’t take long until you’re tripping over yourself as you stumble into the school library on the top floor. You sprawl out on a blocky alphabet rug, skull buzzing with liquor. From his bag Skwisgaar withdraws the Dethklok Patented Firebox Fire-In-A-Box™ (a translucent cube that emanates light and heat) and sets it down. The library is flooded with an ember glow.    
  
Your finger follows the outline of the letter Q underneath you. You say you wish you could have gone to school.  
  
“Norways doesn’t has school?” Skwisgaar teases, flopping beside you.  
  
It did, but you didn’t get to go.  
  
“...Ohs.”  
  
Pivoting, you ask what school was like in Sweden.  
  
“School ams school, no matters wheres you goes.” He smiles crookedly. “I was really goods ats it.”  
  
Of course he was.  
  
“Hee hee, I was! I was, though!” His tittering knocks him off-balance, but he rights himself. “Checks de records! I gets de best grades, and alls of mine teachers say I was _a pleasure to has in class_.”  
  
His laughter travels to you. You say, if he was so good at school, how come he's so dumb? He rolls his eyes.   
  
“Fffffff schools kinds of stopped beingks a pri-oor-rah-tee afters--”  
  
He stops himself suddenly, like he just pulled himself back from a cliff’s edge. The playfulness drains from him, his posture stiff. You sit up.  
  
After what?  
  
His stare splits you, his eyes two hot coals. The firelight flickers erratic shapes across his skin, and he wears the shadow like a mask. He nabs the bottle and takes a long drag, nearly chokes on it.  
  
“H’okays,” he wheezes. He reclines to grab a thin children's book from the shelf behind him and _rrrrrrrriiiiiiIPS_ out a page, starts tearing it into tiny pieces. “So’s, you know hows my moms hueghhhh sucked?”  
  
If Pickles was here he would make something of that word choice. But he's not. So you don't. You say yes.  
  
“Ja, wells, de goberments agreed, so dey tooks me away from hers.”  
  
You puzzle this over. The government can do that?  
  
“Yups! Dere’s dis agency what hunts around for kids they t’inks ams in--” he throws up sloppy air quotes “-- _unsafe livings conditions_ , or some shits. So dey takes dem aways and sticks dem wif other families. For _de child’s best interests_ , pfts.”  
  
You fail to see the downside of this. Something to take you away from the bad stuff and make things better? Like a fairy godmother? Where was that when _you_ were a kid? What a gift! You say that sounds amazing. Skwisgaar scoffs.  
  
“It woulds have beens, except de family dey stuck mes wif was _also_ bads.”  
  
Oh.  
  
“Den after a whiles dey stuck mes wif _another_ family, and dey! Was evens! Worse!”  
  
The weight of what he’s telling you crushes you like a boulder. You watch his hands, shredding the paper to confetti. He tears out another and makes short work of it.  
  
“Livings wif my moms was bads, but at least it was badness I coulds _deals_ wif, you knows? Every times dat good-for-not’ings agency moved me arounds I hads to figure outs what kinds of badness de new family hads. Was dey gonna smacks me arounds? Was dey not gonna has enough foods for me? Was dey gonna.” The paper splits in two in his hands. He grabs another and keeps going, his speed unfathomable. “Does, other stuffs, to mes?”  
  
The pile of frayed papery bits grows larger and larger still, entire pages disintegrating before your very eyes. You ask, how long did he live like that?  
  
“Lost tracks. Yeugh. You knows, dey says dey dids it cause dey wants to takes care of mes. But _no ones_ took cares of me. Nots dose families. Nots the goberments. Nots my moms. De only ones who tooks cares of me _was_ me. _I_ dids dat! I _dids_ dat. I dids _dat_.”    
  
His words from your argument in the tank reverberate through you.  
  
“ _I needs you to fucking adapts. T’ings change, and if’s you don’ts change wifs dem you’re goingks to dies._ ”  
  
So much of what you knew of Skwisgaar is shaded by this. His opportunism. His obsession with control. His difficulty connecting with others. His hatred of being alone. You replay everything you’ve gone through in the past few weeks, but this time, you envision Skwisgaar as a little boy.   
  
Skwisgaar moves for another sheet of paper, but there are none; he’s mangled the entire book. When he speaks again, his voice is weaker, brutalized.  
  
“My moms got mes back. Eventuallys. Buts it was...differents, after dat.” His hands now immobile, you see that they’re shaking. “ _I_ was differents.”  
  
A hush falls over you both. Then he does something that catches you by surprise. He starts laughing.  
  
It’s not his normal laugh, goofy and unpretentious. This one’s high, strained, something long imprisoned making its ruthless escape. Clutching his head between the heels of his hands, he looks you you, his face like a melting wax figurine. You reach out, gather him in your arms, and he _craters_. He clings to you as though he is trying to fuse, to make your bodies one entity. The laughter crumbles into body-wracking sobs, so big he practically gags on them. You don’t know what else you can do, besides hold him. If it were you you’d want to be kissed. You don’t know if he wants to be kissed. You lay your head on top of his, let your unpursed lips settle into the roots of his hair.  
  
“You're alls I haves left,” he whimpers. “I can'ts does dis wifout you.”  
  
This is not a moment you should feel good about. But you'd be lying if you said you hadn't dreamt of it. To be his entire world. To be the one thing, the _only_ thing that matters to him. You’re invigorated. You’re powerful. You're a monster.


	7. Chapter 7

This is how it goes for the next few months.  
  
You drive until you run out of road; find new roads; keep driving. You do what Charles begged you to do: Keep a low profile. And it works, it seems. Long stretches of time pass without any encounters with the Revengencers or the Half Man. But the threat of attack always prickles at the back of your neck. You stick to spacious areas, places where populations are sparse. When you absolutely must speak with other people you keep your interactions brief, transactional. You use different names. _Leo. Richard. Mel. Dimneld. Mag. Charlie. Billy. P. Nate_. While bartering for gasoline Skwisgaar calls himself _Tyr_ then gets quiet, folds into himself for the rest of the day.  
  
You trade the wienermobile for a stair car, which you trade for a school bus, which you trade for a hot pink hybrid, which you trade for a jeep. Skwisgaar teaches you to drive, and lets you take the wheel. You teach him to throw a punch. He’s bad at it, keeps tucking his thumb under his fingers. You peel his fist like an orange, reposition him, make him try again. Without his cornucopia of serums and conditioners his hair settles back into its natural pattern--wavy, floating about his head in a halo. A full, bushy beard swallows half your face. Skwisgaar has less luck with facial hair, his jaw dusted with stubble. Whenever you venture outside, he conceals his mouth and nose behind a white scarf.  
  
America opens like a locket. You see so much. Wave-battered beaches drowning in driftwood.  Swaying stalks of crisp, long-dead corn. In a dense thicket of woods, you find a bird. Its wing is shredded, white feathers dyed with old blood. It squawks in agony, flopping helpless in the dirt. You squeeze your eyes shut. Say you’re sorry. Crush its skull beneath your boot. The squawking stops. You tell yourself you did the right thing. You tell yourself that a lot.  
  
It’s a cold and clear night, and you’re sitting on the hard earth, swaddled in blankets. Skwisgaar tinkers beneath the jeep’s hood. You’ve already set up the tent for the evening, but you don’t go inside, not yet. You want to watch the sky. The storm clouds, which have been a billowing constant since your journey began, have begun to dissipate.  
  
Skwisgaar slams the hood shut with a grunt, arms smeared with grease. He twists his torso, swiftly, to crack his back, then slouches to the ground beside you. He lays his head on your outstretched thighs, and you squirm an arm free to scratch lightly at his scalp. Your physicality no longer requires pretense, but you know he likes when you do that; you know it helps him relax. He hums in gratitude.    
  
“Your nails gots longs,” he says.  
  
You say without guitar, there’s no reason to keep them short anymore.  
  
He holds his own hand to his face, inspects it, clicks together the whites of the nails on his thumb and middle finger.  
  
“Dis time last years we was on tours.”  
  
You’re still on tour, in a way. A new kind of road life. This one isn’t as fun as the last one. You ask if he ever wonders how different all of this would have been, if the other guys were here.  
  
He doesn’t answer right away. Mouth closed, he drags his tongue across his top row of teeth. You fear you may have pushed him into another one of his silent spells, that you won’t hear his voice again for hours or even days. But after a moment he speaks.   
  
“I tells you one t’ing,” he says, “if Moidaface was here, dere’s no ways he woulds have lets us goes into dat camps wif dat knife lady.”  
  
Oh yeah, no way. He would have forced you to set up camp in the woods, all the while shouting (you say this with your best Murderface impression) **_IT’SCH A TRAP!!!!_** White spittle flies from your mouth and lands on Skwisgaar’s cheek. He swipes it off.  
  
“Whats about Pickle?” he says, snickering.  
  
Pickles? He _definitely_ wouldn’t have let you split up while exploring that amusement park.  
  
“He loves de buddy systems!” He clamps his nostrils and speaks as high as his voice will allow. “ ** _NYEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHH DON’TS LOSE TREEKS OF YER BUDDIES YA DOUCHEBEEGS_**!”  
  
Nathan would have _freaked out_ at Abigail’s cult.  
  
“ ** _WHO ORGANIZEDS DIS COVEN OF EX-GOIRLFRIENDS??????_** ”  
  
You can barely form words around your giggles. **_AMS YOU GUYS STILL MAD AT MES?????_** Skwisgaar is vibrating with laughter, holding his hands over his face to muffle the sound. Soon it tapers off, and so does yours. In the quiet your grief yawns, shoves between you as something physical and unyielding.  
  
You say you miss them.  
  
“Me toos. Dethklok was just supposed to be’s a _band_. It wasn’t supposed to be’s...”  
  
He closes his eyes.  
  
“...everyt’ings it was.”  
  
You crane your neck to drink in the dark night sky. Between the gauzy wisps of clouds, you see the faint glimmer of stars.  
  
“Toki?”  
  
You look down at him.  
  
“Ams dis all dere is? Running arounds whats like chickens wif dere heads cut off, forevers?”  
  
You nudge him, pointing upward when he opens his eyes. The clouds are breaking up, you say. That’s got to be a good sign right? Maybe that means things are about to get better.  
  
He smiles without teeth. The skin at the bridge of his nose wrinkles.  
  
“Or maybe t’ings ams about to gets a lot woirse.”  
  
You don’t have a response to that, so the universe provides one for you. A brilliant streak of white light sails across the sky like an arrow, then disappears. You knot your fist in the fabric of his jacket. Did he see that?!  
  
“Ja. I dids.”  
  
You rustle him in your excitement, almost knock him out of your lap. A shooting star!  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
You’ve never seen one in real life! It was so fast? Did he make a wish? He’s supposed to make a wish. You scan the sky in the hopes of spotting another one. You glance down at Skwisgaar, expecting him to do the same. But he’s not looking at the sky. He’s looking at you.  
  
You ask again, did he make a wish?  
  
He sits up, the cold finally getting to him, and burrows into your blanket cocoon. He slinks up against you, the tip of his nose an icy button against your cheek. A shiver rocks you.  
  
“Why don’ts you makes a wish fors de bof of us?”  
  
You do. But you don’t tell him what you wish for.  
  
The next day, you’re at the wheel, maneuvering the jeep through a mountainous region. You’ve been driving for a couple hours. The ride is steep, needing all your focus. You’re steering over a particularly craggy piece of road when, without warning, Skwisgaar demands that you stop. You slam on the brakes, nearly losing control as you skid to a halt. What’s wrong? What does he see? Revengencers? The Half Man? Are they about to die? Are they already dead? What is it? What? What? _What_????  
  
He backhands you, snapping you out of your hysteria.  
  
“Calm downs,” he says. “I just wantsted you to sees _dat_.”  
  
Out of your panic-spiral, you see what he’s referring to. Built into the rock face of the mountainside ahead is an expansive resort, white-bricked and red-roofed. Nestled amongst the spindly evergreens and with the dark, distant peaks as a backdrop, it seemed out of place, a gemstone in a pile of ash. In its prime it would have been the kind of place you and the guys would retreat to when you needed to escape the shackles of celebrity. A narrow dirt path winds up to the entrance.  
  
“Ams sick of drivings,” Skwisgaar says, kicking his feet onto the dashboard. “Let’s checks it out.”  
  
You’re unsure, but you’re _also_ sick of driving, so what the hell, you go. You park out front and deploy the Uhhhhhhh What Is It Again Some Kind Of Cloaking Device God I Don’t Know Can’t We Just Call It A Cloaking Device Why Do We Have To Come Up With All These Names Charles I’m Bored I’m So Bored Call It Whatever You Want I Don’t Give A Shit™ Cloaking Device, shielding the car with an invisible sheen. Inside, the foyer is overgrown. The floor is carpeted with a verdant flush of clovers, the welcome desk ensnared with ivy. Crystals are missing from the chandelier above you, the ones remaining coated in grime. Before you is a wide, elegant wooden staircase, beckoning you upward. Instead you take a hard right, into the lounge. The room is airy, with floor-to-ceiling windows like a cruise ship. Skwisgaar is already here, scavenging behind the bar. From underneath the countertop he produces a turquoise hi ball glass. He turns it over in his hand several times, contemplating something, picks up a second. He nicks them both, then ducks out of sight.  
  
While he futzes, you’re drawn to the far corner of the room. Basking in sunlight is an exquisite ebony baby grand piano. You cut a slash through the layer of fine grey dust as you drag your finger across its surface. Despite the filth, it appears to be in pretty good condition. You press down a key, waiting for the clunk of a sour note. But the sound that comes instead is...pretty? You plunk down another key. Nice tone. Taking a seat on the bench, you roll your knuckles over three black keys. It sounds great. The piano, inexplicably, is in tune. What a strange and marvelous little miracle.  
  
Skwisgaar appears beside you, toting an antique glass decanter sloshing with dark brown liquid. Might be whiskey, might be perfume. Only one way to find out. (It’s perfume. You keep drinking anyway.) He seems just as confused and delighted as you are.  
  
“After alls dis time, we founds an instrument what _works_.” He tinkers out a haphazard melody. “Too bads it amn’ts an instrument either of us cans actually _plays_.”  
  
Ah, a dig about your musical ability. Classic comedy. You chuck him on the shoulder, laughter full of sarcasm, and say hurr hurr hurr _good one_.  
  
Skwisgaar’s face is blank. “Good whats?”  
  
Good joke. That was a joke, right?  
  
Skwisgaar blinks.  
  
He _knows_ you can play the piano.  
  
Skwisgaar is flabbergasted. “You _cans_?”  
  
_Yeah_.  
  
“Since whens?”  
  
Since, uh, _always_. What? He _knows_ this. You played on _several_ Dethklok tracks.  
  
Skwisgaar taps his chin in thought. “Ams dat what dat crinkle-tingles sound was on _Have To Talks To a Gastroenterologist Because I Gots_ _Strangled Bys My Own Small Intestines_?”  
  
Yes, the piano sound was a piano.  
  
“Huh. Ins my defense, I don’ts really pays attention to de parts dat are nots me.”  
  
That’s not a very good defense.  
  
Skwisgaar swings his leg around to straddle the bench. “Plays somet’ing for mes.”  
  
No!  
  
“Why’s not?”  
  
Cause he’s just going to be all _judgy_.  
  
“ _Hueeugh_ , dat’s the problem whens you opinions ams always right. Everyone t’inks you ams _judgmental_.”   
  
You start to rise but he stops you, grips your wrist with insistence. After a pause he says, “Please plays somet’ing for mes. It cans be anyt’ings. I needs to hears musicks again.”  
  
You gnaw on your lower lips. He promises he won’t judge?  
  
“I promise.”  
  
Your fingers hover over the keys, but as soon as they touch the ivory, they retract like shy hermit crabs. You say, you can play anything?  
  
“ _Anyt’ings_.”  
  
The familiar rush of nervousness that accompanied every performance bubbles within you, but you tamp it down. Skwisgaar has never asked you to perform for him like this. You don’t want to squander this opportunity. Your hands find their positions, and you start to play something, the first song that pops in your head. Skwisgaar pulls a face.  
  
“Ams dis Stevie Wonders?”  
  
You punch the keys with a resounding **_CLOURGHSCHPLATTHT_**. He said he wasn’t going to be judgy!!!  
  
“I’m nots judging!” He cries, palms up to show his innocence. “Ams just surpriseds! I didn’t knows you knews dis song.”  
  
You confess, with a touch of hesitation, this was the first song you ever learn how to play.  
  
“It was?”  
  
It was. In your mind you return to the church of your childhood. Sweeping up, alone, after a service. In your clumsiness you knocked your mother’s hymnal book to the ground, and while you put it back together, you discovered a secret. Sheet music, to a song unlike anything you’d ever heard. This secret still leeches to you, makes your head fuzzy with questions of her interior life. Why did your mother have that? Where did she get it, and why? There was so much about her you would never understand.  
  
Skwisgaar softens, kicks your foot. “I...likes, Stevie Wonders.”  
  
He does?  
  
“Mhm. Keeps playing.”  
  
You take a breath, hold it for a moment, and resume. When you taught yourself this song all those years ago, you didn’t know it was a pop song. You didn’t even know it was American, would not know that until you heard the real version a decade later, in a grocery store on the other side of the world. But you knew it was markedly different from the dirges your mother played in service each week. It provided you a glimpse outside the insular hovel you called a home. It showed you something else, something _better_.  
  
As you play, Skwisgaar doesn’t comment on your sloppiness, or scoff, or lob any of the derision you’ve come to expect whenever you play in front of him. At the start he pipes in with a few gently needling words of encouragement--“Ohs you’re feelings it! Yeahs, you’res a superstars!” But as the chorus rolls around, he gets quiet. And he just watches, and listens.  
  
You play the melody but don’t sing, reciting the words in your head to keep the pace. It strikes you that this may have been a poor song choice. The lyrics, in the context of your new life, seem like a laundry list of small, wonderful things you will never get to experience ever again.  
  
_No summer's high_  
_No warm July_  
_No harvest moon to light one tender August night_  
_No autumn breeze_  
_No falling leaves_  
_Not even time for birds to fly to southern skies_  
  
If Skwisgaar shares your sentiment he doesn’t show it. You have captured his undivided attention. It emboldens you; you add trills and flourishes, get loose. He looks the way you imagine _you_ always looked, every time you sat on his bedroom floor and watched him create magic with his hands. Awestruck.  
  
When you finish he doesn’t say anything, lets the final notes hang and fade. When you ask how you did, he fixes you with a dreamy half-smile. The blues of his eyes are fractured by white fissures, like cracks in a thick plane of ice.  
  
He lifts his shoulders and drops them. “ _Eh_.”  
  
You take a swing at him but he’s too nimble, rollicking to his feet and walking backwards away from you.  
  
“Come ons,” he says, waving with the decanter toward the exit. “I wants to finds de pools.”  
  
You follow him and ask, why?  
  
He stumbles a little, clutches his bag self-consciously. “I likes pools. Ams I not allowed to likes pools? Ams I nots alloweds to have hueeeegggghhhhhhhhh _outsides interests_? Eh? Ams you de _interests police_? No? Den let’s goes.”  
  
It does not take long to find the pool. To the left of the foyer is a staircase, and at its base is domed spa and fitness room. A sauna slumps half-rotted beside a moldering hot tub. Warning signs about safety precautions have fallen from their careful mounts. A lifeguard stand is tipped on its side. And in the middle of the room is the crowned jewel, an Olympic-sized pool decorated in white and blue tile, its railings and ladders a muddy, oxydized green.  
  
You move to head inside, but Skwisgaar holds you at bay.  
  
“Wait heres.”  
  
What? Why? What’s the deal with this pool? Why doesn’t he want you to look at this pool? Moments ago you could not give less of a shit about this pool, but now it’s the most important thing you’ve ever encountered in your entire life.  
  
Skwisgaar is still smiling. “I wants to does somet’ings.”  
  
You want to _look at this pool_!!!!  
  
“You cans! In a little bits.”  
  
If you don’t look at this pool you will literally die. Skwisgaar spins you to face away from him.  
  
“I’ll tells you whens I’m dones,” you hear him say as he retreats. “Has some patiences for once in your godsdamn lives.”  
  
You stand there with your back turned like a big dumb asshole for what feels like hours. Skwisgaar doesn’t answer your pleas to tell you what he’s doing. What is he _doing_? Why won’t he let _tell_ you? Your anticipation transmutates into fury. Who does he think he is, telling you what to do? He’s not the boss of you! _You’re_ the boss of you! **_What’s in the fucking pool?_** You can’t take it anymore. You whip around and _demand_ Skwisgaar tells you what he’s doing. Then your heart stops.  
  
Within the pool in a circular pattern are dozens of translucent turquoise glasses, hi balls and snifters and champagne flutes and pilsner glasses and tumblers and more. Beneath each of them is a tea light candle, their meager flames casting blossoms of shadow that quiver across the tiles. The room is awash in luminous blue light. And standing at its center is Skwisgaar.  
  
When he realizes you’re watching he yelps in surprise, dropping the wine glass he was holding. It falls to the ground and shatters. “I tolds you--I wasn’t _dones_ yet. I said I’d tells you when I’s was _done_.”  
  
You ask what this is.  
  
Skwisgaar scratches at the back of his calf with his foot. He glances down at his work, suddenly bashful.  
  
“You saids you missed swimmings.”  
  
You feel as though you have been swallowed by an irrepressible tide, that you can’t find your footing on the ground beneath you. The distance between you and Skwisgaar is too great. You leap off the ledge and into the pool, missing the steps entirely. You topple over several of the glasses, then several more as you stumble toward him. The glasses clatter along the tile and roll into the darkness. Skwisgaar’s expression is colored with disappointment.  
  
“If you didn’ts likes it you coulds have just saids so. Don’ts gots to mess it all ups like a dil--”  
  
Your hands are in his hair and his breath is on your face and then you’re kissing. It’s like both of you are melting, that you need to grab at every piece of him to keep shape. Face. Hips. Back. Shoulders. Neck. Waist. He seizes you like he’s shipwrecked and you’re the last lifeboat in the entire ocean. It’s good. It’s really, _really_ good.  
  
You’re so lost in the kiss, you don’t notice Skwisgaar guiding you out of the pool, back to the foyer and up the wooden staircase to the first landing. When you come up for air you see the staircase continues upward in a spiral for several more floors.  
  
“Hey,” he murmurs, trailing a line of kisses along your jaw. “Where do you t’inks de fanciest rooms in dis hotel is?”  
  
You can’t remember anything about how hotels, or bedrooms, or anything that is not kissing works. You sigh as you suggest, the top floor? Skwisgaar pulls back, crumpling.  
  
“Ohs. I was hopings you’d say dis room rights here,” he gestures to a door right beside you, “cause I don’ts feels like climbings all dese stairs.”  
  
Aw, is he too tired to run up a couple more steps?  
  
“I’m delicates.”  
  
He’s _very_ delicate. But he doesn’t have to worry. You’ll take care of him. And you hook an arm under his knees and sweep him into your arms to carry him the rest of the way, bridal-style.  
  
There are four more floors after the first one, and you need to evade patches of uneven wood and torn up rugs on your ascent. All the while Skwisgaar is braying that you better not drop him, don’t you _dare_ drop him, his arms locked around your windpipe. But you’re buoyed by endorphins and euphoria and something else, too, and before you know it you’re kicking open the French doors of the honeymoon suite and tossing him onto the still-made blue-sheeted bed. As you crawl over him both of you are giggly messes, your heart thrashing in your chest like a wild and rare bird. Skwisgaar smooths your hair out of your eyes, and he’s looking at you again the way he did when you were playing piano. Completely and utterly spellbound.  
  
“I loves you,” he says. “I nevers…”  
  
You say: You know. You say: You love him, too.  
  
The doors of the suite click shut as you come together once more. Outside those doors is everything else.Your bloodied hands. Your uncertain future. Your dead friends. But in this room, you’re not thinking of any of it. You think about the flutter of his almost-white eyelashes. The graze of his teeth on your shoulder. His hitching breath on the shell of your ear as he coos deeper, deeper. His embrace tightening as he approaches climax. The way his mouth curves around your name to make a new sound, a new kind of magic. In here there’s only you, and him.  
  
In his arms, you are home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Stevie Wonder song Toki plays is I Just Called to Say I Love You, and his version sounds [a lil something like THIS.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXOu0L_JVxU&list=RDMMmXOu0L_JVxU)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! There is a sex scene in the middle of this chapter. Just letting you know!

 

The two of you give yourselves permission to get a little sloppy. A wine cellar beneath the hotel is stocked with bottles labeled with long, French names you can’t pronounce, and you drink until your teeth and lips are black. You defenestrate anything you think will make a cool sound when it hits the ground five stories below. You have sex on every available surface. You’re deliriously happy. But you’re living in a funhouse mirror, a simulacrum of your most rambunctious tour exploits. If you squint, it’s almost the same. It’s not.    
  
You’re standing in the bathroom of the honeymoon suite. Your supplies, which you’ve done a pretty good job keeping track of up to this point, are everywhere. Strewn about the floor, draped across the furniture, hanging from the chandelier for some reason. At your feet is the suite’s jacuzzi, a flirty, heart-shaped number made of red porcelain set in a base of white marble. The brass faucets flake with rust. Skwisgaar insists it won’t work, the pipes long gunked up, but you want to give it a shot. You haven’t had a proper cleaning since you left Abigail’s, and you’re starting to feel rank. Not to mention, you like the idea of taking a bath together. Something about it feels domestic. Romantic.  
  
The hot water knob _screeeeeeeeeches_ as you strain to turn it. It’s rigid, you need both hands to get it to budge. Nothing happens. You try the cold water knob; same thing. You frown. You ball your hand into a fist and, in your frustration, thunk it down hard on top of the spigot. It begins to shake. A rumble growls behind the tile walls. Low at first, then gradually growing louder, louder. Then, in one momentous rush, out pours a waterfall of black sludge, sick with dead leaves and animal rot and decades worth of calcified crap. Oh no. Oh God it’s gross. It’s so gross. It’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen. This was a terrible idea. Why did you do this. You kick off the faucet, gagging as some of the gunk splashes onto your boot.   
  
From the bedroom you hear Skwisgaar’s amused laughter before he calls in a singsong, “I tolds you it wouldn’ts work.”    
  
You reenter the bedroom, primed to defend one of the dumbest ideas you’ve ever come up with because _fuck off Skwisgaar_ , but as you do your backtalk dies on your tongue. Skwisgaar lounges against the headboard, legs crossed daintily at the ankles. He wears a pair of your boxers shorts, his unbuttoned flannel laying open. It’s not his wardrobe that gives you pause. Fanned across the bed are flowers, dozens of them, their centers a black pearl nestled in a cushion of red. You’ve seen these kinds of flowers before, in the movie with the witch and the red shoes and the _there’s no place like home_. Poppies. Adorning Skwisgaar’s neck is a chain of them, and he works efficiently to create another. It’s like he’s knitting, but not knitting. He splits the rubbery stem with his thumbnail with delicate precision, then threads a new stem through the hole. Repeats.   
  
He catches you staring, and smiles from the side of his mouth. “I needed somet’ings to does wif my hands.”  
  
You ask where he got all these. He sniffs.  
  
“Ummmmmmmmm outsides?” He hooks his thumb toward the windows. Below is a field bursting with them, and beyond, the mountainside is smattered with pockets of red. Weird you didn’t notice that before. “Dummy?”  
  
You ask who taught him to do this.   
  
“My grandmoms,” He resumes his work. “She used to’s watch mes a lot whens my moms was. Busy.”  
  
More like _getting busy_ haaaaaaaaaahahahahah. Ha ha. Ha. You hold up your hand anticipating a high-five. He does not acquiesce. He glares at you like he’s trying to make your head explode with his mind. You lower your hand slowly. Cough. Say you’re sorry.  
  
“My grandmoms,” he continues, pointedly, “she saws how I used to gets, you knows, in my own heads a lot? She thoughts loirning to does stuff wif my hands woulds helps.” He breathes a laugh. “She was rights.”  
  
In your old life, Skwisgaar answered questions about his past with vague deflections. Now he volunteers information without hesitation, kernels you hoard like a dragon. Precious. Valuable.  
  
You ask if she taught him anything else.  
  
“Oh ja, all kinds of t’ings. How to makes breads. How to braids.” He shakes his head and three tight braids swing into view. “She started to teach mes hows to cross-stitch but euygh. She dieds.”  
  
Widening the last hole on the final stem, he slowly slides the head of the first flower in the chain though, closing the loop. He holds it aloft for admiration, then lowers to his brow with mock reverence. The circlet of red is a crown of blood against his golden locks. Despite doing little more than wiping down with a damp towel these past few weeks, he still looks so good. How does he still look this good? It’s infuriating.  
  
You sit beside him. Ask him to make one for you. He glances down and screws up his mouth in thought.  
  
“I don’ts t’inks I has enough,” he says. An idea blossoms. Gathering the plants in a bunch with one hand, he beckons you closer with the other.  
  
“Stay stills,” he mutters. The stems snaps off with a twist, so only the bright, friendly heads remains, pooled in the palm of his hand. Skwisgaar plucks one, leans in, and weaves it into your wild, coarse beard.  
  
“So’s,” he says after a moment. “I’s beens t’inkings.”  
  
That’s a nice change, you say. He grips the short, fine hairs near your ear and yanks. _Ow_. He smooths it down and sets another flower there.  
  
“You likes dis place, right?”  
  
Of course.  
  
He licks his lips, as though doing so will make whatever he says next more palatable.  
  
“Whats if we...don’ts, leave?”  
  
You laugh. He wants to stay _here_?  
  
“Why nots? We gots everyt’ings we needs. We gots beds, we gots booze.”  
  
What happens when the food runs out?  
  
“You’s a big strong mountain mans now.” He pulls gently at the hairs on your chin. “You cans hunts for us. Wrestle a bears. Snap it neck. We has bear meats for weeks.”  
  
Oh, okay, yeah, sure. And who would cook it?  
  
“Mes!”  
  
Him?  
  
“Mhm!”  
  
Did his grandma teach him how to cook bear meat, too?  
  
“Noes, buts I coulds figures it outs. Can’ts be dat much differents from cooking a hankboiger.”  
  
A flower droops and tumbles out of your beard. He catches it before it hits the sheets, returns it to its place.  
  
“We coulds gets a dog.”  
  
Where are you going to find a dog?  
  
“Listen, we’ve founds all kinds of weird shits. You t’inks we can’ts find a dog?”  
  
You like this little game. You like the idea, absurd though it may be, that Skwisgaar wants to be ordinary. You like humoring him, you like bantering. You brainstorm names for the pretend dog you’re going to get in this pretend scenario. Work complete, Skwisgaar’s hands settle on your collarbone. His gaze meets yours. The sincerity in his eyes bludgeons you. Oh. This is not a game.  
  
You say his name, softly.  
  
“Why nots? Why can’ts we does it?”  
  
Why? Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh because of the bad guys? Remember them? Revengencers! Salacia! If you stick around here too long they’ll find you!  
  
“Wells, okays, buts, wills dey, though?” He reclines, one finger lifted. “T’inks abouts it. Whens was de last times we saw any of dem guys, eh?”  
  
You rack your brain. You don’t have an answer.  
  
“Can’ts remember, cans you? Whats if, stick wif mes here, whats if dey ams all gones? Zapped each others untils dey all blows up, pashoo, dones, de ends.”  
  
That doesn’t sound right.  
  
“Why nots? We didn’ts does not’ings to _start_ de apocalypse. Maybe we don’ts got to does not’ings to _stops_ it.”  
  
But Charles said--  
  
“Charles said we has to stay alives. And we’s doesing dat. What if dat ams enough?”  
  
It can’t be that easy.  
  
“It cans be.” Fingers snake around the back of your neck, entangle in your hair. “No more runnings. No more beingks scared. Just yous, and mes. Here. Safe. Wouldn’ts dat be nice?”  
  
The end of his nose nuzzles yours. Heat radiates from him. The breath behind his words pushes at your skin as he murmurs, “Don’ts you wants dat?”  
  
As his lips touch yours, you get a vision, clear as the image on an 800-inch flat screen TV. The hotel gleams with life. A humble garden of root vegetables sprouts in the front yard. Smoke coils  from the chimney. A flank of meat roasts on a spit above an open flame. Skwisgaar, hair streaked with white, strums at a beautiful guitar of his own construction. An English Mastiff sleeps at his feet. You’re comfortable, and content, and happy. You want that. You want it so bad.  
  
But a tug in your heart brings you back to Earth. What you saw, that’s not real. That’s just a fantasy, a chimerical comfort cooked up by two sad, broken people. That is not how your story ends.    
  
You don’t give voice to your thoughts. Instead, you deepen the kiss. Explore the warm body beneath his flannel. Nudge it away from his shoulders. Breath quickening. He clumsily unfastens your fly. You rise, kick off your boots, shuck your clothing. Reach for the lube on the bedside table. Crook your thumb beneath the waistband of his boxers. Down his legs, off. He falls back, starts to move onto his stomach, but you grab his hips and hold him in place. You want to see his face.   
  
You sit, he rolls to straddle you. Steadies himself, hovers above you. Lube hot in your palm. Slick yourself up. Slide one finger into him, another. His eyes flutter shut. Hands pulse against your neck. You position yourself at his entrance, and wait.  
  
“ _Please._ ”  
  
You glide in slow, savor the sensation. His head lolls, lower lip disappearing behind the top row of his teeth. You cradle the back of his skull, guide him so your faces touch. Kisses ghost across your jaw. His crown slips. The poppies’ velvety petals skim your cheeks. You want to be closer. You can’t be closer. You try anyway.  
  
You grip at his thighs, thrust until you’re buried to the hilt, stroke him until he’s a moaning mess. You’re doing most of the work, but you’re in a generous mood. You want to give him everything. Make him feel everything. You watch his face, incandescent with elation. You want to remember this moment forever, preserve it in amber.   
  
Lying in the afterglow he’s stupefied with pleasure, ragdolled on top of you. He repeats the same phrase, over and over, a chant, a spell. Speaks it right into your mouth, like nourishment, like bread. _Alskling. Alskling. Jag älskar dig så mycket._ You leave the next morning.  
  
Which brings you here, now. You stand on the bottom floor of an abandoned shopping mall, the upper levels circuitous platforms of steel and glass. Before Salacia rose to power, this was a magnet for wealthy shoppers of discerning taste--you recognize the logos of several high-end brands. The stores were long ago raided for supplies, but from your vantage point you can see a decent amount of materials remain. Luxury goods have little use in the apocalypse, it would seem.  
  
The two of you study the directory, some of the stores blocked out with strips of black electrical tape. It was your idea to come in here, and you’re more excited than Skwisgaar to look around. You haven’t told him, but you have ulterior motives for dragging him to this bastion of capitalism. Today marks one year since you escaped Mordhaus to start this new life. One year of close calls, of tears, of withdrawal fits, of nightmares and adapting and screaming in the dead of night when you hope no one else can hear. And you want to celebrate the occasion. You want to find him something good. You want it to be a surprise.  
  
Dropping Skwisgaar’s hand, you eagerly suggest splitting up. Skwisgaar is wary.  
  
“De last times we split ups it, huegh, dids nots goes well, for, mes.”  
  
Oh come on, that was _one time_.  
  
“ **Toki.** ”  
  
You just want to look around for a little bit. Maybe he’ll find a tub of that lotion with the crushed up diamonds and white rhino horns he loves so much.  
  
The prospect intrigues him. “Ten minute. Den we outs.”  
  
You take hold of the bend of his elbow and kiss him, gentle, on the temple.  
  
The sun is setting, and fading light filters through the broken skylights in the ceiling. Bits of plant life peek out between the cracks of the marble floor. Weaving in and out of the shops, picking through wares, brings a sense of familiarity. A little over a year ago, spending an afternoon in a mall would have bored you. Now, it’s the most thrilling thing you’ve done in months.   
  
Skwisgaar trails you lazily, leaving enough distance for you to furtively dig through the racks in the hunt for the gift. He lobs out commentary, mocks the products, mocks you. He’s gonna feel _so stupid_ when you give him this perfect thing, whatever it is. Something skitters along the edge of your perception. It moves fast, a volt, then vanishes. You turn towards it. See nothing. It was probably nothing. A mouse. A rat. A cockroach. You call out to Skwisgaar, ask if he saw anything.  
  
There’s no answer.  
  
You call his name again. No answer. You double back. Skwisgaar's gone.  
  
He can’t have strayed far. Being alone makes him anxious. It’s fine. He’s fine. You call his name again. No answer.  
  
At the center of the mall is an empty, two-tier black marble pool that harbors a large glass sphere fountain. A hole is carved into the top of it; when it was running, water was propelled up and through the globe then out of the hole to cascade down its exterior. The pools have long since been depleted of their coins.  
  
You’re standing beside this moldering fountain when it happens. The interior of all the stores on the bottom floor, darkened for months, flash with a blinding light. And then the stores on the second floor. And then the third. And then the fourth. The whole mall lights up like a pinball machine. You shield your eyes as everything around you is suddenly awash with a haunting purple glow. You know that glow; it’s the same one that radiates from the veins and chests of the Revengencers. It’s the same glow that took Murderface. It’s the same glow that took that camp.  It’s the same glow you and Skwisgaar have been outrunning for so long. But time has run out. The Half Man has found you.  
  
There’s a groan of rusted gears as the light powers on the escalators behind you. You spin on your heel and are flooded with relief when you see Skwisgaar at its peak. He takes a step forward and is driven toward you on the slow-moving vessel. But something is wrong. His hair and clothes float about him as though lifted in an invisible wind. He twitches and shifts, like his bones are breaking and resetting wrong with each movement. As he draws closer, you see him shedding bolts of purple electricity. The lights surrounding you grow brighter and brighter as he nears. When he reaches the floor you see only his silhouette, his head tilted at an unnatural  angle, like his neck was snapped. You call out his name. When he answers, it is not his voice. It is thousands of voices, speaking all at once, a chorus that speaks aloud the fear you’ve carried in you every day of this awful year.  
  
“ ** _S K W I S G A A R ‘ S  G O N E_**.”


	9. Chapter 9

The atmosphere vibrates with chaotic violence. Skylights overhead, once ablaze with the warm glow of magic hour, are now flooded with darkness. Standing before you is Skwisgaar, but it’s not Skwisgaar. Flutters of electricity rise off his body, slices of purple light moving like koi fish beneath his fluorescent skin. His hair serpents about his face, his eyes vacuous white portals of light. In place of nails are talons; in place of a smile are rows and rows of shark-like teeth.  
  
The air surrounding Not Skwisgaar warbles. He takes a shuddering step in your direction. And then another. And then another. He moves as a marionette moves, a rigid facsimile of humanity. You want to flee, but you’re rooted to the spot. A deer in headlights. Trapped. He stops, squints, cocks his head, almost playful. A forked tongue unspools from his mouth. He reaches for you, drags a claw down the side of your face. Tears dribble off your chin, evaporating from his skin with a sizzle.  
  
“ **_W H A T  D I D  H E  C A L L  Y O U?_ ** ” The touch is sharp as a knife. “ **_A L S K L I N G?_  "  
  
**He flattens his hand against your chest. The pain is excruciating, heat tearing straight through your clothes. So hot, boils your guts, brands your skin. You don’t move. You don’t scream.  
  
You say, voice wavering, you won’t fight him.   
  
Not Skwisgaar shambles backwards. He outstretches his arm, palm-out. One by one, the ends of his fingers alight with small balls of energy, _one two three four five_ .The light trickles down his fingers, collecting into a crackling ball and growing bigger, bigger, bigger still. His grin widens, consumes half his face.  
  
“ **_I  D O N ‘ T  N E E D  Y O U  T O  F I G H T  B A C K  T O  G E T  W H A T  I  W A N T._ ** ”   
  
And he blasts you.   ****     
  
The shot hits you in the belly, and it feels like you were kicked by a horse. It carries you off your feet and sends you flying 10, 15 feet through the air. You slam into the ground with a **_THUD_ ** , bounce, faceplant, then somersault backwards. Your body comes to an abrupt _stop_ when it collides with something solid--the base of the decorative fountain. The fractured corner digs into your shoulder, narrowly missing the top your spine. Woozy, you glance up and see Not Skwisgaar readying another shot, smaller and less spherical than the last. He fires, and a continuous beam sails over you and crashes through the opening of the global glass structure. Light bounds riotously against its containment, pinging back and forth until it cyclones into a tumbling nucleus. Shimmering webbing forms at the bottom of the globe and climbs upward, wrapping it in a shifting, effulgent net. Not Skwisgaar yanks back, and the globe breaks from its fixture with a riotous clatter. The beam disconnects from him, finishing in a point, and he clasps it at its middle. He raises it, slowly, ominously, and you realize with creeping horror Not Skwisgaar has forged a weapon. A phantasmal mace.   
  
He tests the weight, waves it left, then right. He locks eyes with you. Lifts his weapon high, then slams it into the ground, inches from your feet. A cacophonous **_BOOM_ ** resounds throughout the mall, shakes the building down to its foundation. The mace leaves a colossal crater in its wake. You skitter away like a spooked kitten.   
  
Not Skwisgaar rights the instrument and releases, but it holds steady at the center of his palm as if mounted. It spins in a perfect circle in front of him and as it does, four pearly orbs manifest, one above his head, one below his feet, one to his right and one to his left. He flicks his wrist and they shoot out of sight. Light bursts from Not Skwisgaar’s back. It ciphons into two rays, holds for a moment, and then unfolds into immense, skeletal wings. You watch, terrified, as Not Skwisgaar lifts into the air, the weapon in one hand, a ball of energy in the other. He hovers high above you, sparking with menace. An angel of death, poised to deliver you to your final resting place.   
  
He chuckles. Low. Certain.     
  
“ **_R U N.”_   
  
** You run.   
  
You don’t know where you’re going, or what you’ll do when you get there. Primal instinct possesses you, puppets your body as your brain hollers a single incessant refrain, _get out get out get out get out GET OUT GET OUT_ **_GET OUT_ ** . The walls and ground explode around you as Not Skwisgaar fires blast after blast. You duck and weave to avoid them, some getting so close they singe your clothes. You leap over a broken harp and break into a full sprint. You’re nearing one of the exits. Maybe there’s something in the jeep that can help you. A knife. A gun. A bomb. Anything. Maybe if you get out you can figure out how to fix this. Maybe--   
  
Not Skwisgaar bashes his mace into the ground behind you, and the building trembles. A barrage of glass and cement rain from above. You cover your head but a piece of debris clips you in the back. You try to maintain balance, fingertips skimming the ground, but you stumble, and you fall. Before you can get up, you hear something, coming from right above you. A monotonous hum, like the drone of a lawnmower. It’s the first orb. Only, as you get up, it doesn’t maintain its shape. It mutates, elongates, turns into something else. Humanoid. Big. Angry.   
  
You see Nathan.   
  
He’s translucent but solid, his skin is torn apart, ripples of purple energy visible in the rifts. His eyes are bright and blank. He raises his hand, flayed and mutilated from catching that sword, sacrificing himself to grant you and Skwisgaar escape that long, long year ago. Do you think he regrets his sacrifice, knowing you’ve squandered it? He makes a fist. A phantom gauntlet triple the size of his hand appears. He rears back and punches you dead in the chest.   
  
A full force punch from Nathan, the real Nathan, would have incapacitated you, no doubt. It would not have been powerful enough to send you flying across the room. But Not Nathan’s is.   
  
You’re hurtling upward at blistering speed, your trajectory leading you to a walkway that bridges the opposite sides of the second floor. You crash through the first glass panel of the guardrail, and the force propelling you is so great you break the second. You’re rolling over the edge. You’re going to fall. Along the outer rim of the walkway is a row of white planters, harboring withered remains of dead flowers.You flail out and lock onto them, fingers slipping along the metal in a desperate grip. To your relief, it holds. You take a breath, prepare to heft yourself up, when you hear that drone again. It’s the second orb. It, too, shape-shifts, creating something intense. Wiry. Tenacious.      
  
You see Pickles.   
  
From your angle you can see straight through the cavernous hole in Not Pickles’s jaw, where the blade of Murderface’s katar made its finishing blow. The wound in his chest is a vacuous portal of purple light. Does it haunt you, how you abandoned his maimed body to be trampled and desecrated? He hikes one foot in the air. Jutting from sole of his sneaker are shadowy spikes. He drives his foot down. Penetrates your wrist. Grinds.   
  
You shriek in pain and, as an involuntary reflex, let go of the planter. Not Pickles pulls out, and then you’re spiraling downward, end over end. The floor is coming up fast to meet you. Just as you’re about to make impact, Not Skwisgaar floats into view at your side. Grasping the mace with two hands, he winds up, laughs, and with a mighty swing, bats you skyward.   
  
You go back, back, back, over the walkway and up to the third floor, where you smash through the window of a suit shop and land butt-first in a display case of ties. It buckles, then caves beneath your weight, and you’re a crumbled wreck on the carpet. It’s quiet save for the ringing in your ears. How are you still conscious? How are you still _breathing_ ? Every bone in your body should be shattered. Yet here you are. Unbroken. _Good_ for _you_ .   
  
Your legs shake as you rise, pawing at a nearby clothing rack for balance. Your vision blackens at the edges, images doubled and untrustworthy. Biting hard on your tongue, you try to refocus, dredge up some small piece of strength to keep going. But as you move to depart, something makes you falter. Your wrist, throbbing at the place of impact, is not bleeding. In fact, you see no injuries at all.   
  
A sharp pain pierces your shoulder, drops you to your knees. An arrow, buried deep in your skin. Soon, another whizzes past, whistling as it flies by your ear. Joining the noise is that drone sound. You look ahead.   
  
You see Murderface.   
  
He’s planted just beyond the store’s entrance, looking just as he did the last time you saw him. Shimmering purple veins coil across his body like vines, his chest radiating with an opal-shaped light. Strapped across his body is a quiver, in his hands is an elegant bow. Are you grateful he’s gone, that he’ll never know how you found his death so inconsequential? He nocks another arrow.   
  
You roll aside and keep low, army crawling for cover behind the cashier. Several more shots plink against the wood stand. You swallow. Bracing yourself, you rip the arrow sticking from your shoulder and hurl it down. When it makes contact with the ground, it disintegrates into a flurry of purple dust. Huh. You glimpse around the corner, and an arrow nearly takes out your eye. You can’t stay here forever. You squeeze your eyes shut. Take a deep breath. Take another. At your side is the plastic torso of a male mannequin.   
  
As soon as your on your feet, you’re met with a barrage, but you remain untouched. The mannequin is your shield, and you hold tight as it catches every single arrow. You steady yourself. You charge.   
  
Not Murderface does not stray from his position. He keeps firing as you approach, does not flinch when you dash right into him, stick the makeshift shield into his gut. Not Murderface bends into a 90 degree angle across the guardrail, topples over it, and disappears.   
  
Hanging from the ceiling are long gold banners. Behind them, you see a half moon shaped window. Outside that window is a ledge, which leads to a lower level roof, which leads to a ladder. If you get outside, you can scale down the side of the mall, get to the jeep, then maybe, _maybe_ you’ll have a chance. Not Skwisgaar searches for you in sweeps. You hear his wings slice through the air, drawing closer. To your left is a ramp which leads to the fourth floor. It’s your best shot. You turn.   
  
You see Charles.   
  
He’s the worst of them all. His limbs hang off his body at the joints, held together by thin strands of light. His jaw is missing, replaced by shimmering, interlocking gossamer. His chest cavity is torn open, his organs missing. He gave everything, gave his very _soul_ to keep you safe, and in the end it was for nothing. How does it feel, knowing you’ve rendered his life’s work pointless?   
  
He’s too quick, restraining you in a headlock, his hold tight against your windpipe. You wheeze, scratching at his forearms, as he pivots you to face outward. Not Charles is unbudging. You’re running out of air. You’re running out of time. Not Skwisgaar ascends, luxury goods--Clothes. Fragrances. Fine leather goods.--encircling him in opposing, diagonal orbits. He soars toward you with purpose.   
  
“ **_N O W,_ ** ” he says, “ **_Y O U  W I L L  K N O W  W H A T  I T  M E A N S  T O  S U F F E R_ ** .”   
  
Securing one hand on Not Charles’s arm, you reach back and snag the back of his suit jacket. You buck, then quickly launch the upper half of your body forward to flip him over your back, over the railing, and directly into Not Skwisgaar’s face. Not Charles combusts like a water balloon, raining a spray of purple sparks. Not Skwisgaar shrieks, loses his composure. The luxury items fall from their orbits; the mace disappears, the glass globe fountain plummeting to the ground floor. In his confusion Not Skwisgaar ensnares himself in the gold banners, suspended like a fly in a spider’s web.  
  
Sprinting as best as you can to the top floor, you pause at a section of the guardrail where the glass panel has been kicked out. Not Skwisgaar struggles ten feet away from you. Your gaze travels between him, and the window, and back again. It’s not a far jump. You could make that jump.   
  
This is your moment.   
  
You get a running start and leap. Latch onto him. The fabric tears.   
  
Now you’re plunging, down down down, arms interlocked, tumbling over one another, right side up, upside down, falling further and further until you get the best of him, get him under you, use him to cushion the landing as you slam into the ground floor with an echoing **_BOOM_ ** .   
  
The dust settles. You catch your breath. Not Skwisgaar is pinned beneath you. He squirms, his phantasmagoric wings flickering in and out, and vanishing.  
  
“ **_I N F E R N A L  M O R T A L  V E S S E L_ **.”  
  
A chunk of marble shaken loose from the crash is at your side. It’s heavy, requires two hands to lift. You heft it over your head. But then, you hesitate.  
  
Not Skwisgaar’s lips curl in a taunt.   
  
“ **_Y O U  C A N  E N D  T H I S_ ** .”   
  
You can end this. Save a populace from further ruin. Undo your mistakes. Find Abigail again. Rebuild. Make all of this, all of the death, all of the loss _mean_ something. But Skwisgaar…   
  
Not Skwisgaar grins. “ **_L I F E ‘ S  F U L L  O F  T O U G H  C H O I C E S,  I S N ‘ T  I T ?_ ** ”  
  
As you stare down at this creature, this twisted replica of the man who means more to you than anyone on the planet, your mind endures a deluge of images, senses, memories. Hunched over an amp, eyes predatory by curious. An opportunity presented, a lifeline. A smile with teeth. Calloused fingers over yours, guiding your hands on the neck of a guitar. Warm breath on the shell of your ear. _I was a cowards._ Fire. _I lets you downs._ A hand held in a hospital room. _I'm nots going to does dat agains._ Hot tears snaking down your neck. Buzz of laughter against your lips. Red poppies. Red poppies. Red poppies. _Alskling. Alskling. Jag älskar dig så mycket.  
  
_ You see it too late, the momentum already carrying your hands to complete their arc. A surge of light erupts from his mouth and sails upward. A pair of wide, terrified blue eyes find yours moments before the rock connects with his skull.  
  
“Toki, WAITS--”   
  
_KECHUNK_ .   
  
Quiet.   
  
Oh no.   
  
Oh, God.   
  
The piece falls from your hand.   
  
_Oh God oh God oh God.  
  
_ His head is caved in like a rotted watermelon. His body is cold. You slip off him, lower you ear to his chest, listen for even the faintest _thump thump thump_ .  
  
There’s nothing.   
  
Grief, regret, horror all rush out of you in a wail. Do you feel that? That hollowness your chest? The hopelessness? Remember that feeling. Wallow in it. Choke on it. It’s not going to change anything, of course. You keen, _you’re sorry, you’re sorry, you’re sorry_ . You’re sorry. Your words mean nothing. You’re apologizing to a corpse. You thought you were above tragedy. You fool. You insolent child.   
  
You’re distracted. Shrieking and mournful. Cradling the body of the love of your life, dead by your hand. This is what you don’t see. You don’t see the scene around you dropping away, evaporating into whiteness. You don’t see the boundless void surrounding you in all directions. You don’t see the ball light above you, nor the tendril of energy slithering toward your crippled form. You don’t see it snake into Skwisgaar’s boot, where he kept that knife he never used. You don’t see it close around the handle, methodically unsheath it. You don’t see that knife until Skwisgaar, too, fades into nothing, and that knife is stabbing you in the chest, driving all the air out of your lungs with malevolent push. You think, this has to be the end. A blade wedged into your heart? There’s no surviving that. The dagger twists, and you watch it drag out of you, feeling the blade snipe apart every piece of your insides. But when it comes out, it’s clean. Not a drop of blood, not scrap of organs. It looks just as it did when it went in. You scramble searching for an entry wound and find none. You see the ball of light crackling with manic energy above you. You see it start to change. You see it transmute into a figure, become corporeal, growing hair, teeth, shoulders, fingernails.

 

And then you see me.

 

I know what you want, Toki Wartooth.

  


You want nothing more than the tender embrace of oblivion, but it will always elude you.

  
  
  
  


You cannot outrun your fate.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


While everyone you love crumbles and dies around you

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


You will always

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Stay alive.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_...Toki?_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_Stop screaming._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_It’s done._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The first thing Toki feels are hands. A pair on his shoulders, a pair on his chest, a pair retraining his legs. One hand is curved around his neck, the other slapping his cheek. He smells clean sheets and old weed. Four discordant voices plead with him, ask him to do something. He realizes his eyes are shut, and opens. Overhead is the sagging canopy of Nathan’s bed. The hands release him. He sits up. Seated in a halo surrounding him, are his bandmates.  
  
“We told you you were overdue for a nightmare,” Nathan says. “Didn’t we say that? Pickles, we said that, right?”  
  
“Nightmares?” Toki is alarmed by the sound of his own voice.   
  
“Yeeah,” Pickles concurs. “And from tha looks of it, that one musta been a doooooooozy.”   
  
A nightmare?   
  
A nightmare.   
  
Toki snatches Nathan‘s hands, turns them over, seeks a wound to stick his fingers into, but there’s none. He turns to Pickles who, confused but amenable, holds out his hands as well. Toki smacks them aside and grabs him by the jaw, to tilts his head back and fumbles at his fully in-tact neck.   
  
“Ow, dood.”   
  
Whirling on Murderface, he tugs down the collar of his shirt, finding a his chest that’s hairy and sweaty, but flesh-colored.   
  
And Skwisgaar.   
  
_Skwisgaar.  
  
_ “How you feelings, Mr. Crazy Crazy Guys?” He smiles from the side of his mouth. “Ams it crazy?”   
  
Hands trembling, Toki skims his fingers along the sides of Skwisgaar’s face. Perfect. Unchanged. He takes his perfect, umarred face in his hands, gently, and kisses the spot where his rock made impact. It unleashes a beast, and he can’t stop himself from peppering him with kisses. Skwisgaar receives them with passive stiffness.   
  
“Ugh, _gay_ ,” Murderface scoffs.   
  
“Um, okaaaaays,” Skwisgaar’s voice is pitched with discomfort. “Dis may as well happens.”   
  
Toki stops and rocks back onto his haunches. His relief is counterweighted by a seismic sense of loss. His eyes swell with tears, and then he’s sobbing.   
  
“Shh, hey nows, don’ts cries,” Skwisgaar coos, folding Toki into an embrace. “Cause I don’ts…...really feels like dealings wifs dat, rights nows.”   
  
That gets a laugh.  
  
The door slides open with a mechanical rush.   
  
“Everything alright in here?” Charles asks, poking his head through the threshold. “I heard screaming. Not your usual screaming. Screaming that should be addressed.”   
  
_Charles_ .   
  
“Yeah, we got this handled,” Nathan answers.   
  
“Glad to hear it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work that needs to be done before--”   
  
“Hey Charlesch,” Murderface drawls, rolling onto his stomach. “Do you know what the _hardescht, moscht rewarding_ kind of work his.”   
  
Charles sighs. “I have a feeling my answer and your answer will not align.”   
  
“It’sch the work,” he props his fists beneath his chin and bats his eyelashes, “ _of friendschip_ .”   
  
“That’s very nice, but I have to go--”   
  
“Oh come on Charles, you should get in on this bonding session.”   
  
“We’re bonding asch bandmatesch and asch friendsch!”   
  
“I am neither of those things.”   
  
“Aw, fuck right off with that fuckin’ bullshit, Chuck.”   
  
“Yeah, you can’t pull that card on us.” Nathan extends his arm and quickly draws it back. “ **_Get over herrrrreeeeee._ ** ”   
  
As the argument persists, Toki casts his gaze around and smiles.   
  
“You okays?” Skwisgaar asks, tucking a tear-matted strand of hair behind Toki’s ear.   
  
“I wills be.” Toki breathes easy for the first time in what feels like forever. “Wowee, Toki sure am glads alls dat stuff ams done, and not’ings bad or scary wills ever happens agains! Right guys?”   
  
No response.   
  
“Guys?”   
  
Toki worms out of Skwisgaar’s arms, and looks around. The guys are frozen in place, like figures in a wax museum. Everything is in greyscale, except for three things. Toki himself. The guys’ injuries, illuminated by an otherworldly purple glow. And the suited figure standing at the foot of the bed. The Half Man.     
  
“Impressive,” he says. “That was your best run yet. But it always ends the same, doesn’t it.”  
  
Toki’s back hits the headboard, knees drawn up to his chin. “Why ams you doings dis?”   
  
The Half Man waves a hand dismissively. “The linear passage of time means little to beings like you and me. One must find ways to occupy oneself.”  
  
Toki’s heart is in his throat. He swallows, narrows his eyes. “Y-You won’ts gets aways wif dis. I’m goingks t-to stop y-y-y-yous.”  
  
He smirks.   
  
“So you always say.”   
  
Color gradually returns to the scene, as The Half Man dims, growing fainter, until he’s nearly invisible. Even when he’s gone, Toki still hears that voice. And he always will.  
  
“I’m coming again, Toki Wartooth. Will you be ready this time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to every who's read, commented, left kudos, or looked curiously at this fic. It's been the biggest creative project I've taken on in eight years, and I'm so appreciative of all the encouragement. I love this fandom, and I love you.


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